The Few
by Frontier Productions
Summary: C&C 3 Tiberium Wars. These few, of wich are our fighting men, who we lay upon the burdons of our hopes and dreams, so that they may fight to keep up the hopes of freedom and survival and to make sure that we may live out our dreams. Please R & R
1. Chapter 1: Pinned Down

_**Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING!**_

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Chapter 1: Pinned Down

"He's coming back around, everyone get…" Sergeant Higgins wasn't able to finish his sentence for the Venom finished it for him. The black menacing craft circled back around, spraying bullets into the street in the middle of the ruins of Lisbon, Portugal's capital city. Higgins was able to dive into an alley before the bullets tore into the street sending chunks of asphalt into the air and ripping apart three men of his eight man team.

"Everyone regroup on me! Stay low, we're going to move through the alleys until we find better cover" after only a couple seconds, the rest of the team were with him in the alleyway and moving along it with rifles raised. They ran past burning barrels, scorched walls, overturned trash-cans, and still flaming pieces of the APC that they arrived in, all added to the smell of death that rose around them.

"Sarge, HighCom says that we need to move East in order to meet with the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade" said Corporal Lopez, the teams radio operator, who was running in the middle of the squad right behind Higgins.

"That means that we have to turn around and go back out onto that damned road, sagre" responded Private Malcolm who was covering the team's six o'clock. The private's voice was shaky, everyone was startled by the sudden attack which turned a normal Yellow Zone patrol into a fight for their lives.

"Malcolm, I hate to agree but you have a point, Lopez, tell HighCom, that we are getting pinned down by that Venom and will most likely encounter scattered Infantry and that we will hold position once we find adequate cover and that the 2nd can come to us" Higgins responded, who just sprinted to the front of the line and stopped by a door with his fist in the air indicating for the entire team to halt. As soon as that signal was given the entire team hit the wall behind the Sergeant, and after a couple seconds Higgins kicked open the door and rushed in, rifle raised, followed by the rest of the team. After a quick sweep of the building to make sure there were no hostiles or civilians present in the structure two men took position near the door, which was the only way in or out of the structure since there was no back doors or a window, while the rest sat down and drank water and just relaxed for a couple minutes in a city that, once glorious, became hell for the now five man team. There was still food on the table, now rotten, that added to the stench of war, the Sergeant sat down in one of the chairs at the table and removed his helmet, wiping sweat from his brow, his face showed that he was average built, he had blue eyes, and a bald head, the most visible aspect of his face however was a scar that ran from his right brow down to his chin that he got from a piece of shrapnel after a Nod bombing run, he pulled out his canteen and took a quick swig, letting the water slither down his throat, before clipping his helmet back into place and sliding his canteen back into it's perspective pouch in his armor.

"Sarge, the 2nd is on it's way to exfill us but HighCom sees multiple dismounts inbound on our position. Sir, they… they have flamethrowers" said Corporal Lopez, who was kneeling by what looked like a fireplace.

"Shit, alright, Nathan and Hernandez, cover the alleyway, everyone else… get ready for the fight of your lives" said Higgins, and as soon as he was done Privates Nathan and Hernandez, who were the men guarding the door, nodded and swung their rifles out more to where they could cover both directions in the alleyway. Everyone else in the squad checked their ammo supply and loaded fresh clips into their rifles if needed.

"Shit! They're here!" shouted Nathan, who was covering the left side of the alley, as he squeezed his trigger and sent hot rounds streaking through the air towards the hostile soldiers striking into to them with enough force to make them fly back. As they started to return fire Higgins shouted,

"No shit Nathan, really? Alright, Nathan and Hernandez, crouch down, Malcolm, get behind Nathan and help out, I'll get behind Hernandez, let's move!" after they all completed the order, the amount of red hot lead flying through the air grew three-fold and after a couple minutes, Malcolm yelled,

"Flamers!" that one word sprouted fear into all of their hearts, for if they got too close, their lives would end with their last sight being bright red-orange flames and their last smell being that of their own flesh burning away.

"Nathan and Hernandez, concentrate your fire on any flamer bastards you see! Lopez, what's the ETA of our exfill?" asked Higgins, while in the background there were three booms indicating that some of Nathan's bullets hit the Flamethrowers' gas tanks causing a violent reaction blowing him and every surrounding trooper around him to hell.

"They're meeting increased resistance, ETA unknown, we're gonna be here for awhile" responded Lopez, to which Higgins muttered a string of curses and than said,

"Alright ladies, let's hold this little safe house of ours and show these rebellious assholes what we are capable of!" to that the entire team let off a couple of cheers and continued firing their rifles at the slowly dwindling amount of Nod soldiers that were charging at them.

A couple minutes later, the constant stream of Nod soldiers died out and everything was eerily calm. Higgins checked the time on his HUD, which read 5:40 PM

"Damn, it's late, alright, we'll take shifts, Lopez, since you've being sitting there the whole time, your on first watch, get up here, everyone else, take a quick look at your gear and than catch some z's" said Higgins as he went back into the small apartment, passing Lopez who was heading towards the door to start his watch, everyone else headed in also, checked their gear and than fell asleep somewhere in the apartment.

"I'm beginning to hate this fucking city and this fucking job" complained Lopez before he leaned against the door well and crouched down, watching the alley

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

"Lieutenant! Why isn't that squad out of that fucking hellhole yet?" asked Major James who has been monitoring that squad's progress ever since the ambush started. Major James is the commanding officer of the 74th Special Operations Battalion so, why he would be interested in a squad of regular rifleman was beyond the pay grade of Lieutenant Farnes, but, he didn't really care that much either,

"The 2nd is running into heavy resistance which is slowing their advance to a crawl, Sir. But it looks like the insurgents have stopped trying to kill the squad for now and I think the men are enjoying the break" responded Farnes, who stole a quick glance to the rest of the 98th Command Group's HQ that was bustling with officers going this way and that, rushing files around, taking orders, giving orders, everything was as it usually was except for Farnes station which, to his knowledge, was the only station monitoring this squad by the command of a SpecOps Major who really needs to calm down. The scopes were clear so why was he so… uh-oh.

"Um, Sir, we may have a problem" said Farnes with his eyes glued to his screen and sweat starting to roll down his face.

"Why? What's going on?" asked the Major as he approached the station to get a better look, and when he got a look at the screen, his eyes went wide and all he said was, "They're going to have a long night"

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

**A/N: Not my first story, but my first C&C 3 story, so, please review, be harsh, I want to know if this sucks or not, also it lets me know that people are reading it. Oh, and next chapter will hopefully be up next weekend. Until than, this is The Rescuer, I'm OUT!**


	2. Chapter 2: The Exfill

_**DISCLAIMER:I OWN NOTHING BUT THE STORY**_

_**A/N: Welcome to another installment of The Few… ENJOY!**_

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Chapter 2: The Exfill

In an unknown alleyway in Lisbon, Portugal

Portugal Yellow Zone

Time: 0230 Hours

"Shit, I'm running low on ammo sarge!" yelled Lopez, as he squeezed down the trigger of his rifle unleashing once non-lethal metal towards the Nod militants that were dropped off from the Carryalls that touched a couple minutes ago.

"The Venom's coming back, get down!" yelled Malcolm while he dived behind a dumpster to not get hit by the Venom's cannons, which ended up hitting, and killing, Nod militants. They attacked in the middle of the night, dropping in during Hernandez's shift and in the first couple minutes of the firefight they were able to strike Hernandez in the leg but, like a true trooper, he wrapped a bandage around the wound real quick and went back to fighting. A hour into the fighting, the militant bodies were piling up at the ends of the alleyway as well as the wounded who were unleashing blood-curdling screams, all adding to the stench of rotting corpses to the smell of gunpowder, sweat, and the trash in the alley as well as adding to the sounds of gunfire and grenades. Thirty minutes after the hour passed the Venom, that was the same that ambushed hours earlier, came back and started strafing the alleyway where the squad was hunkered down. Now, two hours into the attack, the team was running low on ammo and morale, but they knew that they had to fight on, or be shot without mercy. So, they kept fighting, waiting, and hoping, that the 2nd would arrive soon.

"Fuck! I'm hit! I'm hit!" screamed Lopez, who was behind a trash barrel, back to back with Malcolm, as he dropped his rifle and grabbed his left arm, which was bleeding profusely.

"Lopez! Wrap that bitch up and than get back to firing your weapon!" yelled Sergeant Higgins, who was firing from the doorway, as he ejected an empty clip and slammed in another, which he lost count of how many clips he's used. He stole a quick look at Lopez and seeing that he wrapped up his wound and was firing again, turned his head back to where he was aiming down his sights and continued filling the charging militants full of lead. Suddenly, Nathan muttered a string of curses, while throwing down his rifle, and pulled out his pistol and kept on shooting.

"Sarge, HighCom is on the horn wanting to speak with you! It sounds important!" shouted Lopez, having to raise his voice for Higgins to hear over the increasing sounds of the war around them. Without thinking twice, Higgins put his left index finger up to the side of his helmet, and hitting a switch, switched from SquadNet to TacNet and said,

"This is Sergeant Higgins, Alpha Company, 19th Yellow Zone Quick Reaction Force, go ahead" as he was saying this, he squeezed off a burst of rounds that screamed through the air and smacked into a Nod militant who stuck his head out at the wrong time, making him do a back flip, making Higgins smile.

"_Sergeant Higgins, this is Major James of the 98__th__ Special Operations Command, I'm at HighCom monitoring your progress and, son, it doesn't look good" _said James over the radio. Higgins ducked down from a bullet that zinged by his head, missing by just a few inches, and wanted to say 'We're not under attack, we're just having a tea party with our militant friends here, don't worry sir'

"Kinda obvious on my end sir, where the hell is the 2nd, they were supposed to be here by now, I'm about ready to fight out of this city on foot" responded Higgins, instead of saying the aforementioned phrase, as an explosion sounded off behind him saying that flamethrower militants are now charging their position.

"_Alright, I understand your problem Sergeant and I have some good news, the 2__nd__ Mechanized Infantry are turning onto the street to your west, you should see them soon" _responded the Major and if Higgins listened closely, he could hear the engines of the APCs and Pitbulls and the sound of the machine guns and missiles finding their way to targets that he couldn't see, to which Higgins said,

"Hard copy, ETA for exfill, damn quick, thanks a lot Major, out" after saying that Higgins lifted his left index finger back to the com switch and switched it back to SquadNet and, while still squeezing down the trigger of his carbine sending more and more of the militants straight to hell, said

"Alright gentleman, we have friendly units inbound, they're going to appear on the west side of the alley entrance so we ne…" but before he was able to finish Hernandez yelled,

"I saw the Venom coming back around, he's going to make this one count, we need to get inside now!"

"Inside! Inside!" shouted Higgins while everyone rushed back inside, including himself, and flipped over tables to use as cover to get away from the Venom's cannons and missiles that it was going to use to end the teams' lives. Not two seconds after they all found cover, the Venom came screaming overhead unleashing hundreds of rounds from it's cannons and firing three missiles into the alleyway destroying dumpsters, barrels, and sending concrete flying into the air and shrapnel soaring into the apartment sticking into the table, walls, and ceiling and sending the team deeper down into the cover they found to avoid being hit by the lethal bits of metal. Seconds later, however, the venom was blown out of the sky and sent straight to hell by one of the Pitbulls from the 2nd.

"Alright, they're going to try to rush us now, so as soon as you hear footsteps in the doorway, pop-up and open up, but watch for friendlies" whispered Higgins as he checked the ammo of his carbine and, seeing that it was empty and that he had no more clips, pulled out his pistol and pulling the slide back, cocking the pistol. What was only a couple seconds seemed like an eternity for the battle ravaged squad as they waited for death. As soon as they heard the footsteps they sprung up, weapons raised, aiming at the door expecting Nod militants, only to find GDI troopers who, startled, also had their rifles raised towards the team ready to shoot at any militants they themselves encountered.

"We fight for Earth and as a result.." said one of the troopers who looked like the leader of the other squad. Behind the trooper, the other soldiers tensed up a little waiting to see what happened in the cramped apartment.

"…we are saving the lives of innocent civilians and fighting to rid this world of the tiberium infestation" said Higgins, finishing the phrase that was used by all GDI troopers as a quick friend-foe identifier in the field, afterwards, both groups lowered their weapons and the leader of the new squad said,

"Sorry we missed the party but, those damn Nod buggers are persistent little assholes" to that the troopers under the man's command chuckled a little while Higgins and his men just stared at the new group of troopers and, seeing that Higgins and his men weren't responding positively towards the joke, the leader of the new group cleared his throat and said,

"Alright, come on, let's get you guys the fuck out of here, by the way, I'm Sergeant Jonas, now come on" with that Jonas and his squad marched out and turned west and headed towards the vehicle column that was now Higgins' teams ride home, or at least to safety. Before they started out towards the column they picked up their discarded rifles, if they ran out of ammo and had to switch that is, and than just looked at the carnage around them and it hit them, 'This alley, that become a safe haven for them and yet also became hell for them, where… without each other they would have been killed and each one of them were sure that if they were with any other group of troopers, the morale of the team would've cracked and surely, surely, the group would have surrendered and been tortured in a prison camp, or… would have been shot dead, unarmed, and on their knees before their captors' this thought sent chills down each of their spines and, after a shared look between them, they started out towards the column of vehicles waiting patiently for the group. And slowly, they boarded an APC that also held Jonas's squad and the whole column started off towards the safety of definite GDI controlled territory.

"So… what are your names?" asked Jonas as the APC bumped along down the streets of Portugal, Higgins just stared at Jonas and after a couple minutes of silence Jonas said,

"We save your asses and I tell you my name and yet you can't spare me your name?" instead of responding Higgins, spotting a container saying "Ammo" on the side in bold white letters, grabbed a rifle magazine, slid it into his carbine, and pulled back the lever, arming it, and than started sliding more clips into the pouches on his armor. After a couple seconds, the rest of Higgins team started to restock on ammo and grenades as well. Seeing that Higgins wasn't going to talk and that they were just stockpiling for another fight Jonas said,

"What's with you guys, you're fighting for your lives and when you finally escape that, all you guys care about is preparing for the next fight" as he was saying that Higgins was checking over his and when Jonas finally stopped talking he raised his head and looked straight at Jonas and said,

"We may be at a break in the war that rages across this planet we used to call home and, although, we are at a break in this war, the war never stops just because there is a few inches of steel between us and the outside world. This war can stop quickly in an area and than restart just as quickly in the same location. I trained my men on this fact and frankly, you, yourself should know this, for we must breath easy in the times of break, but we must be ready and prepared for the next fight that comes around the corner. This is my squad's creed, it is what we follow every second, every minute, and every day of our lives" seeing that Jonas didn't have anything to say about that he just went right back to checking over his equipment to make sure he was ready for the next battle that was to come. In his peripheral vision he saw Lopez giving him the hand signal that someone on the TacNet was trying to reach him so he quickly switched the channel from his SquadNet to the TacNet again and said,

"This is Sergeant Higgins" as he talked into the radio he continued checking over his equipment making sure that it was all battle-ready.

"_Higgins, this is James, I have… well… I have a lot of bad news son" _responded Major James from HighCom. 'Fuck!' cursed Higgins inwardly and reluctantly asked,

"How bad of news sir?" after he asked that however, the rest of the troopers in the APC with him heard him and than a couple of them looked at each other and everyone started checking and double-checking their equipment. For now they knew that they were gonna be met with something that would extend their time in the hell that the city Lisbon has become for these men.

"_Pretty bad I'm afraid, the Nod forces in the region managed to perform a frontal assault that pushed the frontline in your area farther towards the Madrid Blue Zone and, sadly, that does mean that the 19__th__ Yellow Zone QRF, your company, base has been annihilated and that now, you guys are behind enemy lines and now we're seeing multiple hostile groups heading towards your position. I'm sorry son but I know that you can, and will, find a way out of that hell. I will use every power I have to get you some reinforcements. Good luck" _and with that, the radio went dead and Higgins switched back to the SquadNet and than said,

"We're going to be having a hell of a time getting to know each other Jonas, 'cause, we're gonna be spending a lot of time together. Zeta squad, and Jonas's team, prepare for the fight of your lives" the clicking of men readying weapons suddenly filled the APC as the group were preparing for the Nod forces coming to make sure they didn't get to see anymore of the beautiful city.

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

_**A/N: Alrighty, here we go, lots and lots of fighting, HOORAY FOR ACTION AND RANDOM SHIT GOING BOOM! Anyways, it seems like Zeta squad's bad luck has ended up dragging Jonas's team and the whole damn 2**__**nd**__** Mechanized Infantry into the mix. Please review so that I know that people are reading this, but even if you don't review I will keep updating every weekend (by Mountain Time, fucking asshole East Coasters).**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ **_

_**ΦI'M OUT! HAHAHAHAHA!Φ **_


	3. Chapter 3: Will It Ever End?

_**Disclaimer: Same as last chapter**_

_**A/N: Thank you to those reading and reviewing, it makes me feel all warm inside… HA! Just kidding, anyways, here's another chapter of The Few… ENJOY!**_

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Chapter 3: Will it Ever End?

Portugal Yellow Zone

Lisbon, Portugal

Time: 0300 Hours (3:00 AM)

"_Alright gentlemen, keep your rifles ready and stay cool-headed. Keep an eye out for the Nod insurgents and for civilians that might be in the vicinity, out" _said the Lt of the brigade, who was in the lead APC, making sure that his soldiers were straight minded and battle ready. The column has been rumbling through the city for thirty minutes now and they have only encountered small pockets of infantry. In the APC that held Higgins's and Jonas's squads Nathan looked up at Jonas and asked,

"Jonas, if I may ask, why the hell were you guys out here anyways, I thought that the only major GDI presence in this city were the scattered patrols that came through here" all was tense in the vehicle with everyone still in full armor but Jonas still looked up at Nathan and said,

"We were in the area because we were investigating a recent report of a major Nod complex in the region but when we neared the area under investigation we were hit by practically every fucking thing they have, Venoms and Bombers all the way down to Militant squads, and I guess one of the Venoms, while coming back around for another run, found you guys. I guess command, seeing that we couldn't take the area and that you guys needed exfill, called us in to get you guys out. Well, on the way to your guys' position we were ambushed by Militants with rifles and RPGs to Buggies and Missile Bikes. And now we're on our way to safety. Hopefully we won't be ambushed again" all of Zeta Squad, Higgins's men, were listening intently while Jonas' men just sat there re-living the street-to-street fighting that occurred. Than, all of a sudden,

"_Holy fuck! Enemy bombers, get…" _static and explosions were the end of the Private's alert to the column as the Nod bombers destroyed three Pitbulls and two APCs and than flew off leaving a wake of destruction with flaming hulks and pieces of troopers everywhere.

"_Everyone get the hell out of the vehicles, find immediate cover and begin advancing East to the edge of the city" _shouted the Lt over the BrigNet and as soon as that order was issued, all the soldiers of the 2nd rushed out of the vehicles and ran behind walls, into alleys, or just hiding behind vehicles. Zeta Squad and Jonas' team rushed out of the APC and ended up running into an alley and once they ran in there for a couple meters stopped, regrouped, and started getting ready for the urban fighting. And at just that time Malcolm, noticing that one of Jonas' troopers had slim curves and a smaller frame said,

"Holy shit, you're a woman" right after he said that, with everyone looking between him and the female trooper, Higgins came up and smacked Malcolm in the back of the head and said,

"Male trooper or female trooper, it doesn't fucking matter, we're all in the same shit together. Now, we need to start moving, so, grab your gear, suck up any complaints you might have, and let's get moving" the female trooper gave Higgins a nod of thanks and, after Malcolm looked at the woman one more time and shook his head, the entire team started moving along the alleyway. The group already started to hear the sounds of gunfire and grenades which meant that other groups have already run into enemy resistance. Their group, not wanting to give away their position switched from BrigNet to point-to-point laser communication, except for Lopez since coms coming from HighCom were encrypted to the highest level. As the troopers neared the end of the alley they slowed down and, crouching, advanced slowly towards the end and rounded the corner and continued advancing down the street, close to the buildings in case of an attack, heading East. One of Jonas' men took point but after a couple minutes a bullets came streaking through the air and struck the trooper in the gut dropping him instantly,

"Contact! Get inside the left hand building! Go, go, go!" shouted Jonas as he rushed out, grabbed his squad mate, and dragged him by the back of his armor into the building with the rest of the group. When he entered he saw that the troopers were already at the windows, first and second floors, firing at the militants who ambushed them. The second fight for survival has started with bullets zinging through the air. The GDI trooper's bullets were finding targets easily since the militants were in the open while the Nod militant's bullets were hitting the walls due to their lack of training and that their affect of the ambush worn off. After just a couple minutes the militants retreated and most of the group turned to see if Jonas' trooper was okay, who was being treated by Private Nathan, and seeing that he was patched up and Nathan giving them a reassuring nod, they all let out a breath they were subconsciously holding in.

"Alright, Hernandez and one of Jonas's men need to take watch, the rest of you just sit down, catch your breath and get a drink of water" Higgins said and afterwards Hernandez stayed at the windows on the second floor while the rest of Zeta Squad found a seat and sat down and one-by-one took of there helmets, Malcolm had a close cut, brown color hair, hazel eyes, and a start of a mustache, Nathan had medium length, black hair, and brown eyes. Lopez had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a rough beard.

"Jes, head upstairs and help Hernandez watch over this position" said Jonas who also sat down and took off his helmet, he had brown hair, green eyes, and a scar over his left eye. Jessica, Jes, nodded and walked upstairs and crouched down at the window next to Hernandez, who couldn't help but keep looking at her every five seconds. To make it worse, Jessica took off her helmet showing that she had a soft face, long, free-flowing brown hair with blonde highlights, and blue eyes. Noticing that Hernandez was staring at her, she smiled and, flipping her hair away from her face, nodded towards the window and looked back outside. Hernandez, getting the message, put his attention back towards the street below. After a couple seconds Jessica turned her head back to Hernandez and said,

"Why don't you take your helmet off and relax" Hernandez just stared at her and than looked down at the floor and visibly zoned out.

"Um, don't try to get Hernandez to take his helmet off, because, he never does unless he's in a enclosed area with only us around" said Malcolm, who was sitting at a table in the corner of the upstairs room with a frown on his face and his canteen in his right hand just staring at her with a serious face.

"Why not?" she asked, with a hint of concern in her voice

"This is why" said Hernandez, who took his helmet off while they were talking to each other, and Malcolm's eyes looked to the ground as he had a flashback and Jessica gasped and asked,

"What happened?" half of Hernandez's face was scarred and barely noticeable as being human and he had grayish eyes, he just smiled, or tried to, and said,

"Yellow Zone patrol, we got ambushed by some Missile Bikers" and with that he slipped his helmet back on and looked back out the window towards the street below. Jessica, after staring at Hernandez for a minute, looked back out to the street as well. Malcolm just mentally shrugged and kept drinking his water, favoring the liquid although it was warm and thought 'War is a fucking brutal place'

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Paris Blue Zone

Paris, France

Time: 0430 Hours (4:30 AM)

"_This is Zeta Squad, we're making our last radio call for the night. See you in the morning" _reported Lopez over the radio. Lt Farnes than leaned in and, touching a button on his headset, said,

"Roger that, have a good one" he let go of the button to allow Lopez to speak,

"_Ya, ya, ya, your not the one down here, out" _responded Lopez and than he cut off the channel. Farnes just smiled and, uploading the troopers' position to a hand-held, touch screen, computer and started off towards James's office. Along the way he ran into his friend Lt Kimble, she stopped him and seeing what was on the computer said,

"The commander still has you monitoring that squad?" she was smiling her trademark smiling and wearing the standard issue gray uniform with the sleeves rolled up. She had green eyes, blonde hair, and a soft face. Farnes had red hair in a close cut with unnatural orange eyes, and a forming beard and mustache.

"Yeah but its not all bad, gives me a sense of importance you know" responded Farnes with a cheesy smile. Kimble giggled a little and than said,

"Alright Mr. Big Shot, shouldn't you be at James's office by now?" Farnes than muttered a curse and quickly said bye to Kimble and departed, heading towards the Commander's office. When he reached the commander's door he straightened his uniform and than, while standing at attention, knocked on the door. From inside there was a gruff voice telling him to enter, Farnes opened the door and entered. The first thing he noticed was how abnormally clean the commander's room was, you could take a pure white surgical glove and rub it on any furniture and nothing would come off. In the chair behind his desk sat the commander himself, with his jacket off and on the back of the chair. He had black hair, green eyes, and a face that was lined with stress.

"Sir, Lieutenant Farnes reporting, sir" said Farnes as he saluted the commander, who saluted back. Farnes than sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the desk and just watched the commander who was typing away furiously on his computer. After a couple minutes he stopped typing, cracked his knuckles, and than looked up at Farnes with sleep-deprived eyes. _'Holy crap, when does this guy sleep?'_

"Yes Farnes, what do you want?" asked the commander. Farnes mentally shook himself back to reality and, making sure that the info he wanted to be on the computer in his hand was still showing on the screen, he handed the commander the computer and said,

"Zeta Squad is holding position in a mostly intact building for the night. They've also seemed to lure a squad, Charlie, into their predicament. Charlie Squad is from the 2nd Mechanized Infantry Brigade, status: One wounded, everyone else are good to go. Entire group status: One wounded, rest are combat ready, and they are good on ammo and other gear" the commander was studying the screen as this was said and looked up, nodded and than handed it back and typed away at his personal computer again,

"What about their exfill?" asked James which totally surprised Farnes. _'Crud, I haven't thought of that yet' _he quickly ran ideas through his head and than remembering something said,

"All Ox's at this base are on a 24-hour readiness sequence, as soon as we say so they could be up and off to go pick up the troopers and back within a hour. We could also spare four Firehawks from the airbase as well. Zeta and Charlie Squads could meet the Ox at the Hospital and they'd be heading home, sir" it was now James's turn to be surprised but than his face was lined with worry and asked,

"Isn't the closest hospital occupied by a group of three Commandoes, six Sniper Teams, and a couple engineers?" Farnes stared straight ahead and thought _'Shit, I forgot… but wait…'_

"Sir, that group has been out there for three and a half months, I think it's time to bring them back in sir" Farnes said with a hint of a smile on his face and continued, "also, in the case that they come under attack, it would most likely be light infantry and light vehicles, they are perfectly armed to deal with those threats. And in case things go FUBAR we can have a flight of Orcas on stand-by at the beginning of the exfill operation and send them in to take out any and all heavy threats" he finished thinking _'Wow, did I just come up with that on my own'_. Unknown to Farnes, James was thinking the same thing.

"Alright, I'll give this plan a go-ahead, at 0600 hours, tell those men to start moving. At 0620 hours, we'll mobilize the Ox's and Firehawks. But, remember, if this plan does go FUBAR and your back up plan doesn't work, it is falling on your shoulders, do you understand?" explained James. Farnes gave a quick affirmative and than continued saying, "Alright, I'm putting you in charge of the successful exfill of these men, hoo-ah?" finished James as he looked up at Farnes with a determined face that all but screamed how much he wanted Zeta Squad and possibly Charlie Squad at this base,

"Hoo-ah sir, I'll get it done" responded Farnes who quickly stood, saluted, turned and heading out of the office back to the Control Center. As he was walking he was also looking over at the computer and than said softly to himself,

"This is gonna be hard" he than raised his head and marched determinedly to the Control Center to put his plan into motion.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

_**A/N: Almost couldn't post this chapter in time. My computer doesn't like me. Anyways, I know what you all are practically screaming at me "GET THEM OUT OF THAT DAMN CITY AND GET ON WITH THE FUCKING PLOT!" but, haha, they are going to finally get out of the city in the next chapter. But there will be a price. JOIN IN NEXT WEEK FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER OF The Few… **_

_**Posted every weekend**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	4. Chapter 4: We're Finally Out

_**A/N: Welcome to another installment of The Few. Thank you to you dedicated readers out there. If you have any complaints or concerns, don't be afraid to tell me, I accept ALL reviews. Anyways, you guys probably want me to shut the hell up and let you read the story of Zeta Squad, so… HERE YOU GO!**_

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Chapter 4: We're Finally Out…

Paris Blue Zone

Paris, France

Time: 0630 Hours (6:30 AM)

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, lets make this work and get those tired men out of that devastated city and back here for some R&R" said Lieutenant Farnes, loudly, addressing the rest of the Command Room.

"Air Group preparing to roll" reported one of the Lt's helping with the task,

"Satellite 06 almost in position, feed coming up right… about… now" Farnes looked at the big screen at one end of the room and, with a bit of static, the screen came to life. Farnes' jaw dropped at the scene of the chaos going on in the streets. They saw the blue dots representing Zeta and Charlie squads in the house and the other blue dots representing the Spec Ops group in the hospital just up the road and around the corner. However there were also multiple red dots, squares, and sporadic triangles on the screen showing hostile infantry, the dots, vehicles, squares, and the sporadic appearing triangles, aircraft, all hammering the two positions.

"Who the hell is monitoring the com channels?" Farnes shouted, while turning around, he saw them all standing up but he also noticed one guy lean over and hit a button on his console and all of a sudden the room was filled with voices coming over the intercom. The voices were all jumbled together because of all the use of the com system but they were able to pick out bits and pieces of information,

"…_We have one man wounded and two more KIA at our position, command, we need to get the hell out of here over!" _shouted Lopez over the radio. This new bit of information snapped Farnes back to reality as he started to shout commands to everyone in the room,

"Our plan has already gone to hell! Launch all close-air support aircraft to those positions!" already several officers were snapping to work on what they were told, "I want those Onyx's in the air ASAP! Someone get Space Com on the horn, we need some Zone Troopers in the region, now!" Farnes finished as he stared back at the screen. He muttered a quick prayer for the men and than activated his headset before he said,

"Zeta Squad, this is Lieutenant Farnes, we are deploying every asset we have to get you out of there. Just hold on for a couple more minutes." he than just stared at the screen thinking of how this might end. So far it didn't seem pretty.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Portugal Yellow Zone

Lisbon, Portugal

Time: 0633 Hours (6:33 AM)

"…_Just hold on for a couple more minutes" _Lopez, surprised by what he heard, stopped firing and just sat there staring off into space. Noticing this Higgins, angered that his man wasn't laying down his fair share of hurt on the Nod bastards that surprised them just a couple minutes after they sent their 'last' transmission to command, he looked straight at him and yelled,

"Lopez, why the hell aren't you shooting? Did you reach command? Are they sending help?" Lopez only nodded and confused, Higgins ran close to him and asked,

"Lopez, pay attention, what are they sending?" Higgins asked, snapping Lopez back to reality before replying

"Everything" Higgins stared at him in shock and than shook himself back to reality. Before he could ask what he was thinking, Malcolm beat him to the punch,

"Everything? On just us? We're that important?"

"Guess so" replied Lopez as he got back to shooting out his window. This jolted Higgins back to reality. He looked back to the back of the building and saw Hernandez wounded in the shin with gauze over it and two more bodies covered with tarps and cloth found in the building. Higgins shook his head and rushed back to the window that he was shooting from on the bottom floor while Charlie Squad was right above them firing down on the hostiles trying to swarm their position and end their lives. Hearing screaming and insults he looked at the street and saw a bunch of militants charging towards his position as fast as they could. Angered, Higgins raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger with all his might sending GDI's love towards the assholes. One bullet struck a militant in the chest, dropping him, while another hit a militant in the arm, spinning him around, before another one hit him in the back sending him sprawling onto the ground face-first. As he was sending flaming shards of lead down range he heard the distant roar of aircraft. Expecting another Nod air strike he yelled out,

"Get down!" he than ducked down but when the bombs that were dropped landed on the militants and busted into flames, he looked up at the planes overhead and seeing them in the shape of Firehawks and seeing the GDI eagle he yelled,

"Friendly planes have arrived! Lopez get on the radio and start directing better air strikes!" Lopez muttered an affirmative as everyone else were cheering and screaming insults at the Nod soldiers. Higgins cheered as well but than he heard his com system beeping saying that someone was trying to contact him. He raised his left hand up and hit the button that would activate his long range transmitter.

"This is Higgins, loving the Firehawks, over" he heard a laugh at the other end and than Farnes replied,

"_Yeah, I'm sure your are. Zone Troopers will be landing at your location, ETA, three minutes…"_

"I'm sorry to interrupt sir, but, did you just say Zone Troopers?" Higgins asked in shock

"…_yes, yes I did soldier. Once they land however I need you and Charlie Squad to haul ass to the hospital up and around the street while the Zone Troopers cover you, how copy?" _Farnes finished and after awhile of staring into space, Higgins shook his head and than said,

"Hard copy command, can't wait to get out of this hellhole. See you on the other side sir" Higgins said. Farnes muttered an affirmative and than the com link closed leaving the Sergeant there thinking when Jonas came over their shared SquadNet and asked,

"_Higgins, what's going on? Don't leave me out of the loop here" _Higgins snapped back to reality. He laughed a little and replied,

"Command is sending some Zone Troopers to our position. Once they land, we have to move to a hospital down the street under the covering fire that the Zoners will supply. Once we get to the hospital I'm guessing we are going to be picked up and taken to command" after that Jonas muttered something about the KIA and than he cut the link. Higgins shook his head and than started mowing down any militants that got too close to their position in the house. What seemed like half a hour later he heard a distant sound that was like screaming and than he heard thrusters popping into action and than a massive oval shaped object with the GDI eagle on the side of the thrusters landed in the street with a thud. Seconds later the sections of metal in between the four thrusters came flying off, crashing into walls of structure and one even slammed into a couple of militants, splattering them into a wall. Zone Troopers came pouring out of the pod firing their Gauss Rifles at Nod militants, vehicles, and even one shot down a Venom that wandered too close to the powerful Zone Troopers. Higgins watched in amazement as they cleared out all the Nod combatants that were stupid enough not to retreat back around the corners of the block. Higgins stood up from the crouching position he was in and, reloading his rifle, said,

"Alright guys, gather your equipment, get ready to move"

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

"_This is Zeta Squad. We are Oscar Mike to the exfill point, how copy" _said Lopez over the radio. Farnes lifted his finger and held down the button on the side of his headset and replied,

"Hard copy Zeta Squad, good luck" he lowered his hand and smiled to himself. 'I did it, these men are going to be brought home' he thought as he crossed his arms and stared at the screen. Zeta and Charlie Squad were in route to the hospital covered by the Zone Trooper drop team, a Onyx was on it's way to pick them up and bring them home, and this was accomplished with minor casualties. All in all, he thought he did pretty well, 'But there not out yet, stay alert' his brain told him, which was true, Nod could attack at any second and completely devastate the ground forces or shoot down the Onyx. He heard foot steps coming from behind them, the person stopped next to him but Farnes was just staring at the screen with a smile on his face,

"I guess you did it" he heard the person say. He looked over and, seeing that it was his friend Kimble, smiled even bigger,

"They're not out of that hole yet" he replied as he fully turned his head to look at her. She had her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. He couldn't help but notice how the uniform she wore showed her curves and how thin she was. As he was looking over his friend he heard,

"Ahem… Farnes, my eyes are up here" he real quickly snapped his eyes back up to look straight into hers,

"Sorry, I guess I zoned out" he said while turning his head back to the screen and started doing some mental calculations about what would happen and how he would retaliate if something were to go wrong now. He was snapped out of his predicting when he heard giggling, he looked back over at Kimble with a surprised look,

"Your too serious sometimes Farnes" she started running her finger on his back, making circles, and said, "You need to relax, see beyond the war" with that she lowered her hand, turned, and went back to her station. This left him with a lot to think about, 'Maybe I am too serious, so stuck on the job' he thought. He mentally shrugged, 'Oh well' than he went back to making sure the men made it out safe and sound. His eyes went wide, there were no more hostiles on the screen. They turned and ran from them.

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Higgins was sitting in the corner of the lobby that his, Jonas', and the Zoners' squad had to defend. He had his helmet off and was inspecting his equipment when he heard something heavy coming into contact with the floor multiple times, 'Just one of the Zoners walking around. Damn bastards make too much noise. But, why does the thudding keep getting closer?' than it hit him, one was walking towards him. He didn't have anything against Zone Troopers but when they arrived at the hospital and found out that there were no more Nod in the area he went to sit in a chair in the corner so he could be left alone. He'd let his men do the story telling and cracking jokes with them. He than heard the Trooper stop. Higgins looked up and, sure enough, there was a giant powered, humanoid shaped, tin can in front of him. The visor was raised showing a gruff man in his late thirties with a shaven head and face,

"Are you in the command of the men over there?" asked the Trooper as he waved one hand towards the rest of Zeta Squad. Higgins went back to cleaning his helmet and said,

"Yes I am, what about them?" he heard rotors screaming and than a thud that announced that the Trooper sat down in a chair. Higgins, happy with the work he's done, slipped his helmet back on and reactivated the HUD that saved his life more times than he could count.

"I was wondering about your man, Hernandez…" Higgins interrupted the man by saying,

"He won't take off his helmet no matter how dirty it is and no, I won't say why" Higgins was now giving his rifle a quick cleaning.

"Alright, how and you shouldn't clean your rifle in a battlefield" said the Zoner as he stood back up, rotors screaming,

"There's a reason why they give us a pistol and a knife" Higgins said as he finished cleaning his rifle and, after he re-assembled it, set it in the corner. He looked up and, seeing that the Trooper was walking away, sighed, 'Damn Zoners think their god… wait, what's that?' there was a slight light distortion. He thought for a few seconds and than it struck him. He looked around real quick and, seeing more, it confirmed the thought he didn't want to come true. Quickly he brought his rifle up and shot one of the figures in the chest with a burst sending him sprawling onto the floor with blood seeping out. As the active camo wore off Higgins saw the sure shape of the glider on his back. He kicked over a metal table while sending a burst into another form and shouted,

"Shadows!" he crouched down behind the table and shot another burst at a Shadow that was right behind a Zoner sending him flying sideways and a knife, that was in his hand, clattering to the floor. He quickly aimed at what seemed like the last one when he heard a Gauss Rifle scream and the figure just blew into a million pieces. The battle was over in just a couple seconds, though it seemed like minutes. He looked at the other GDI men in the lobby and saw that the Zoner who just talked to him had his barrel smoking he took a good guess that he fired the shot. He also noticed that everyone else weren't even standing up with rifles raised before the fight ended. His helmet beeped and Higgins raised his hand to his helmet and hit the switch as he scanned the lobby for more,

"_This is command, the Onyx is pulling into the zone, we need you guys on the roof ASAP" _Farnes said on the other end.

"Roger that command, we just defeated a Shadow Team. Please advise, over" Higgins heard a curse at the other end and than,

"_Roger that, just head straight to the roof as fast, and as carefully as you can, out" _the com went silent. Higgins stood and shouted,

"Command wants us to head to the roof for exfill! Lets move!" with that, not even caring if the Zoners followed, he knew his and Jonas' men would, he dashed up the stairwell two steps at a time. He heard thudding which represented that the Zoners were following him. The trip to the roof was highly uneventful, once they got there, they saw that the Onyx was already landed and the ramp down. The Spec Ops team that was there had already boarded the transport and were sitting down. Higgins bounded up the ramp and sat down next to a commando and strapped him self in. Seconds later everyone was on board and the Onyx took off heading towards the Paris Blue Zone. Than it hit him, 'I've never been to a blue zone before, went from living in Yellow Zones to camping in Forward Assault Bases in Yellow Zones. This is going to be fun' Higgins smiled as the transport screamed through the air towards safety, but it was also he beginning of something bigger than anything Higgins could imagine. War, what an awful thing.

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

_**A/N: Sorry this update come in so late. I'm having some issues in my personal life. Anyways, hoped you enjoyed this chapter though I'm sure your screaming 'THEY'RE FINALLY OUT OF THERE, YAY!" Don't worry, they'll be sent right into a different hell. Anyways, stay tuned for the installment of The Few!**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	5. Chapter 5: Command's Idea

_**A/N: Alright guys, SCHOOLS OUT! I will have more free time to write (until I go traveling, which I will say so on my account or the last chapter published, which than you will have to wait). I hope you guys are finding this story exciting and interesting. Let me know what you think or of any concerns you have (I have noticed that I've changed the Ox transport to the Onyx transport, oh well, I'm sticking with Onyx, DEAL WITH IT, I'M TIRED!). Here's chapter five of The Few…**_

lllllllllllllll

Chapter 5: Command's Idea

Paris Blue Zone

Paris, France

Time: 0900 (9:00 AM)

Higgins was busy talking to the commando next to him about the Nod attack on their positions and the different strategies they used when the intercoms in the hold came on and the pilot's voice came over them,

"_Attention everyone, we will be touching down in approximately one minute" _Higgins looked around and saw that his and his squad's armor were covered with blood and grime. Higgins laughed a little, the commando heard this and asked,

"Thinking that an officer will chew you out for your appearance?" Higgins could tell that there was a bit of teasing in his voice. He shrugged it off and responded,

"Sort of, a lot of high-ranking, clean, people here and we're arriving covered in blood and grime" the commando laughed and, while patting Higgins on the shoulder, said,

"Trust me, you will get some weird looks but all you have to do is show that your confident and proud of the blood and grime and the weird looks will turn to those of envy" Higgins thought about for a second and thought that it made sense. He muttered his thanks and, after a little bump, the pilot came over the intercom again and said,

"_Alrighty ladies and gentlemen, we have landed and the ramp will be lowering shortly, thank-you for flying Air Flight to Hell" _there were a couple laughs while the ramp lowered. Once the ramp was all the way down everyone started to casually walk out the Onyx with weapons holstered and helmets on and visors down. 'Damn, this must be a hilarious sight. Over twenty fully armed and armored Zone Troopers and foot soldiers coming out of an Onyx covered in blood and grime into a base that is perfectly clean and kept' he than snapped out of his thinking when he realized he was at the bottom of the ramp. Calling his squad together Higgins said,

"Alright men, we are finally out of that hellhole and more importantly, we are in a Blue Zone, no tiberium anywhere. So enjoy yourselves, though I'm sure most of you are gonna sleep for three days first…" Higgins was interrupted by a very feminine voice that asked,

"Sergeant Higgins?" Higgins, kinda irritated that he was interrupted, turned around and ended up being about face to face with a Caucasian woman in a command uniform but most importantly he noticed the double bars of a 1st Lieutenant, being too tired to snap a salute he just responded,

"Yes mam, that is me, what can I do for you?" seeing her left eyebrow rise up Higgins realized that he still had his helmet on and remembered that most officers didn't like talking to helmets. He real quickly took off his helmet and tucked it underneath his left arm and said,

"Sorry mam, now, what can I do for you?" to which the el-tee replied,

"Well, first, go get yourself cleaned up in Barracks D and put on the uniforms in the lockers located there, second, report to briefing room six for a new assignment, fourth, for the new assignment your men will be promoted to 2nd Lieutenants while you will be promoted to a 1st Lieutenant, after all that you will have a week to enjoy yourselves until you must report to briefing room eight for deployment, you got all that?" Higgins was just staring into space trying to absorb all that he had just been told. He could also tell that his squad was having trouble digesting it as well because they just went from normal enlisted men to officers in a time of two seconds. He than went over the schedule she gave him and was extremely glad how fast bullet wounds could be healed with the technology they have, the limbs were stiff for awhile however but you could still move them without excruciating pain. He snapped back to reality and said,

"Okay, we'll do that…" he looked for the nametag and finding one finished his sentence "…Kimble. Good day" Before she could reply Higgins pushed past her and, slipping back on his helmet and activating the map, started to head towards Barracks D with his men following behind him. As Kimble watched them walk off she thought, 'Is there anyone here who isn't so serious?' she smiled to herself and started to walk towards briefing room six to meet Farnes to debrief Zeta and Charlie Squad, feeling her two bars she smiled and thought, 'Farnes got promoted as well and now he's smiling more than ever'

llllllllllllllllllll

When the Higgins and his men stepped into Barracks D the first thing they did was strip out of their grimy, bloody armor and hung it on the racks that were provided for the armor. Afterwards they showered real quick and while they were getting their nicely pressed uniforms on Nathan said,

"Goddamn, enlisted to officer at a snap of a finger. I love GDI" he was eying his Lieutenant bar the entire time he put on his uniform. Malcolm than said,

"You think they're gonna give us desk jobs?" everyone stared at him and than Lopez replied by saying,

"No, they're not" Malcolm returned his look with a serious face with a hint of irritation,

"How the hell do you know?" he asked, letting the irritation slip into his voice,

"Because command risked multiple assets to get our asses out of that city and than afterwards we were immediately promoted plus she said 'deployment' which means front line" responded Hernandez using hand-motions to help get his point across,

"Yeah, I guess your right. Wait, any of you know what happened to Charlie Squad after we got off the Onyx?" Malcolm asked, everyone gave him a smile in return making Malcolm ask, "What?"

"All you care about is that Jessica girl" Higgins said. Lopez whistled and Malcolm muttered,

"Fuck off guys" everyone laughed and than they started on their way to the briefing room to get their new assignment. As they walked towards the briefing room they real quickly got used to having enlisted men salute at them. On the way they kept on teasing Malcolm about Jessica. They finally found the briefing room by using the maps on their wrist mounted, 2GB, PDA that wrapped itself around the wrist, these they found in the lockers with the uniforms. They stepped inside and they saw the three remaining people of Charlie Squad sitting in the front row which could hold eight people. The five remaining soldiers of Zeta Squad sat down in the front row as well,

"Attention!" a voice behind them yelled out the two squads snapped to attention. About three seconds after that a Major, being flanked by two 1st Lieutenants, one was Kimble but he didn't recognize the other one, when they got up front the two el-tees sat down at the chairs while the Major stepped up to the podium and said,

"At ease" they all sat down and the Major continued by saying "Good morning gentlemen, and lady, I am Major James. All of you are probably wondering why the hell I'm here and what a Major wants with you. Your questions will be answered but not by me. They real be answered your new liaison officer, 1st Lieutenant Farnes, than you will be dismissed by liaison assistant 1st Lieutenant Kimble. Treat them with up most respect and dignity. You guys did good, you should be proud. Good day" with that he started walking off and the guy who he said was Farnes stood up and yelled,

"Attention!" we all stood up and waited until the Major left. Higgins couldn't help but recognize his voice as the one who always responded to Lopez and who always contacted him. Lopez also came to this conclusion. After the Major left Farnes approached the podium and said,

"At ease" Higgins and the men sat down while Farnes continued talking "All of us are now part of the 74th Special Operations Battalion, congrats. You are now longer average foot soldiers, after your two week break you will be sent to a training camp and once you leave that camp you be a commando. However, you will not, and I repeat, will not go on solo ops. Also, once you leave that camp you will be specialized with a certain arsenal of weapons ranging from CQB to Long-Range, all of you however will be armed with a Q-17 Silenced Sub-Machine Gun, it has a low amount of recoil and has a forty round clip. Your current armor is currently being disassembled, you will not use that anymore. Your new armor will be jet black with gray visors, there will be no GDI emblems anywhere on the armor neither will your names be on the armor. You will be trained to say nothing, even under extreme torture. You will also be trained in silent kills and the proper use of the jump jets on the back of your armor. You will be trained to go on missions with little to no support where you will be making fast-attack raids and multiple behind enemy lines attacks. Lieutenant Kimble and myself will make sure all the information you have is updated with any and all changes, even the little bit of information that might not be needed. Kimble, if you'd please"

"Attention!" Kimble yelled, and everyone snapped to attention and Kimble finished by saying "Enjoy your two weeks of free time. Dismissed!" with that everyone exited the room. Higgins couldn't help but notice that Kimble went over and gave Farnes a peck on the cheek and that they locked arms, 'Damn it, they gave us a couple as our Intel officers' he also couldn't help but notice that Malcolm was walking out of the room next to Jessica and that the two were talking together. He shook his head smiling to himself, 'Gonna be an exciting two weeks' and with that he left the room and headed towards the gate towards Paris so he could enjoy himself before he had to go sweat it out at some random camp.

lllllllllllllllllllllll

_**A/N: Alright, I know I've been screwing up on some things, my mind just isn't here most of the time. Anyways, hoped you enjoyed this chapter, I know it's short, I'm just using this as a plot bridge so I can go from normal riflemen in a city to a commando squad on black ops missions. And for you die hard C&C 3 fans, I know commando armor isn't jet black and that the visors aren't gray, I'm making some modifications. Anyways, thanks for reading. Join us next time on another installment of The Few…**_

_**Posted every weekend**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	6. Chapter 6: First Time Around

_**A/N: I've decided to only post these every weekend to keep down confusion. Anyways, chapter 6 has arrived! Let us see what happens with this small group of soldiers. Enjoy!**_

Chapter 6: First Time Around

Five weeks later

Paris Blue Zone

Paris, France

Time: 0500 Hours (5:00 AM)

"Hey Malcolm, you got a smoke man?" Nathan asked. Malcolm nodded and pulled out the pack and handed a cigarette to Nathan who than lit it and blew out a ring of smoke,

"Those are going to kill you" said Lopez, the only response he got was a one finger response. Everyone busted out laughing at the sight of Nathan with a cigarette in his mouth while he was flipping off Lopez. They were all standing at a landing pad next to a Hammerhead waiting for the pilot that was supposed to take them to their new Area of Operations. They were all dressed in the gray and black urban camouflage, complete with patrol caps, and were told that their armor and all their weapons, aside from their pistols which were secured in the thigh holsters they were currently wearing, were located at their new base. Higgins was looking around when he spotted another figure in urban camo walking towards them and when the figure was a little closer Higgins could make out the shape of the body and saw feminine curves and aviator glasses in front of her eyes. 'About time she got here', when the pilot was within a couple feet from Higgins the whole team noticed her coming and were assessing the pilot that would take them to and from mission areas. She had blonde hair and a look about her that she knew what she was doing and that she was not going to run away from anything.

"Morning, names Samantha. Let's get the hell out of here, what do you say?" she said with a slight British accent while extending her hand towards Higgins. He grasped her hand and shook it, surprised by the force of the grip she had,

"Fine with me" replied Higgins while letting go of her hand. He turned around to face the rest of the team and yelled,

"Grab your duffels and pile onto the bird, double time, move, move, move!" everyone quickly grabbed their duffle bags and rushed onto the Hammerhead and grabbed a seat. Higgins himself grabbed a seat near the cockpit and as soon as everyone found a seat the Hammerhead powered up and tilted forward, lifting off into the sky.

"So, Samantha, how'd you get selected for this assignment?" Higgins asked the pilot. He noticed her shudder slightly, 'What could have happened to her to cause her to shudder?' Higgins asked himself,

"I don't want to talk about it" she simply said in response. Higgins just shook his head to himself,

"How bout you, what did you do?" the question kind of surprised Higgins but he quickly recollected himself and said,

"I don't really know for sure. One second we were fighting through Lisbon, next second we're in some random Commando training camp learning how to use jump jets. Still trying to figure it out myself" Samantha started laughing which, again, surprised Higgins a little.

"Guess the blokes in command got your head spinning. I say we just show them what we can do and let them figure out why the Nod bastards are just disappearing" she responded as she snuck a look back at Higgins with a large smile plastered on her face and than looked back out to the sky. Higgins chuckled and said,

"I agree with you all the way" before she could respond however he heard Eric, the third survivor from Jonas' old squad, shout out,

"Hey Malcolm, you two get a room will you!" Higgins looked over at the scene. Malcolm and Jessica, who were currently 'dating', were locked in an embrace but both of them were giving Eric the middle finger. Everyone busted out laughing. Higgins allowed them to tease each other because it kept the morale at a high level, which was always good, as long as no fist fights broke out.

"Damn, we're never gonna be able to fall asleep from the sounds of their bed springs" Nathan said,

"And the moaning" Lopez added in, while Hernandez added the appropriate sound effects. Again every busted out laughing. Malcolm and Jessica were just giving everyone stares of death but still had their arms around each other. Finally everyone quieted down and went back to discussing minuscule things such as clothing and family. The trip was gonna be quite unexciting from her on out.

**Forty-Five Minutes Later**

Location: Classified

Time: 0550 Hours (5:50 AM)

Farnes was standing next to a helipad, outside of the structure that would serve as their base from which they would launch raids on location that they thought necessary. Command was going to make sure that their outfit would have as much freedom as possible with their mission parameters. He looked down at his 1st Lieutenant bars and smiled, but he also remembered about the urban camouflage BDUs that was now the default uniform of the outfit, but he just wasn't used to wearing anything but dress uniforms so he was quite uncomfortable even just standing in one spot. A hand suddenly appeared on his shoulder and turned him around making him face his colleague, Kimble, and noticed that she had a stern look on her face he asked,

"What's up?" in response she put her hands on her hips and continued giving him a stern look,

"You don't need to wait out here for them, they'll find their own way inside. Come on, what are you thinking about, because I know for sure that it's not those big headed soldiers" Farnes laughed a little and drew her into a real quick hug and when he let her go she still had a look on her face that just screamed, 'Don't try to change the subject', Farnes sighed,

"I'm just thinking of the freedom we have over our missions. We choose the missions plus the fact that we are the most classified outfit ever put together by GDI. I don't know but, it just feels like we're nothing more than a mercenary group now" he explained.

"Yeah, I've been having that same feeling, but we're still GDI, no matter what" she said as they pulled into another hug. Just at that moment however they heard the distant roar of engine rotors that were steadily increasing in volume indicating that it was heading towards them,

"Here comes the jarheads" Farnes said. Kimble nudged him with her elbow a little forcefully indicating for him to be nice,

"Hey, we have to live with them so, just try, to be nice" she said reaffirming the meaning the nudge had. He turned to her with a smile on his face but a mischievous look in his eyes,

"I will. They will just have to prove their not an average group of jarheads" he said. Another nudge in his side told him that she didn't agree with what he said,

"Eight trained, and soon to be heavily armed, men completely pissed at you… I wonder how that'll end" she said with sarcasm flowing out of her like a waterfall. The roar of the engines was extremely close now and both turned to see the Hammerhead, that now belonged to their outfit, slowly lower itself to the pad and the ramp, also slowly, lowered to the ground and connected with the tarmac with a clanging noise. The newly appointed, and recently trained, commandos came walking out of the craft with the duffels slung over their shoulders and following them, carrying her own duffle, was the outfit's pilot. A tall gruff man with a nasty looking scar on his face walked up to Farnes, who couldn't notice the muscles bulging under the baggy sleeves of his BDU.

"Good morning, how's the food here?" the man asked, Higgins, he finally remembered the name of the team leader. He had a smile on his face and a very friendly aurora about him.

"Foods good, it's the beds I don't like" Farnes replied as he shook Higgins offered hand. Higgins waved his right hand lazily towards the door and asked,

"Shall we?" Farnes nodded and headed towards the door. He was able to hear the echoed footsteps of the men and women who were following him. He reached the door and opened it up wide and held the door for everyone as they entered the one story facility, when everyone was inside he entered himself and he saw that no one looked quite that thrilled about how the room that they were currently in, the 'Lounge', looked. It was quite bland with no decorations at all on the walls, it had a kitchen counter top along the Northwest corner of the room that included a stove/oven, dishwasher, sink, necessary drawers, and the mother of all fridges. Located in the Southeast corner of the room was a pool table with the cues and triangle stored on a rack attached to the wall, already a couple of the men were hovering around it. In the Northeast corner were the tables and chairs that they would eat at and finally in the Southwest corner was the entertainment center, consisting of a four-man couch and multiple single-occupant chairs gathered around a plasma screen TV mounted on the wall, there were also about three terminals mounted on the wall for personal use. There were also four doors in the room, the one they just entered was located at the Northern side of the room. At the eastern side of the room was a door which on it, stenciled in bright white letters, was the word 'Barracks'. On the southern side of the lounge was another door that had the words 'Op Center' stenciled in the same white color as the other door had. On the western end however was a completely metal door with a security panel next to it and stenciled on the door in red letters was the word that sent a smile to most of the Commando's faces, for it read, 'Armory', a good amount of warning symbols also decorated the door.

"Alright, before we do anything, there is one thing I need to know Farnes" Higgins asked and Farnes only reply was a 'hmm' as he was looking around the Lounge,

"We got a team name or are we just gonna be 'The Commandos'?" he asked him. The question kinda shocked Farnes, 'Not your average soldiers' he thought. He looked at the other people in the lounge and everyone, including Kimble, were waiting for his response,

"No Higgins, no we do not, unless you have an idea, and if everyone excepts it, that will be our name, if not, settle yourselves in and we'll figure this out later" Farnes finally said. He could see Higgins go in deep thought for a second and than he could actually see the light bulb come alive above his head,

"The Reapers" he said simply with a proud look on his face,

"The Reapers?" Farnes asked with an amused look on his face and his arms crossed,

"Yes, The Reapers. If you want to know why, just think for a second. We go out to places where no one else will go and are sending the Nod militants straight to the afterlife, I think it fits" he explained as he shrugged at the end of his little speech. Everyone muttered a positive saying for the name and with a sigh Farnes said,

"Alright, we shall be known as _The Reapers_. Feel free to design an emblem for the outfit and put it on anything but the armor and weapons, oh, and don't put it in my Op Center" after that he muttered a quick good-bye, grabbed some food and entered the Op Center, quickly followed by Kimble.

"Alright Reapers, put your crap on a bunk and let's check out our gear" Higgins said as he slung his duffle higher up on his shoulder as he headed towards the barracks with a smile on his face. The sleeping arrangements was quite orderly, no one had any meltdowns of where they had to sleep. The two females shared one bunk, Higgins had a whole thing to himself, Jonas was paired with Eric, Hernandez with Malcolm, and Lopez with Nathan. At the southern side of the room was a door that read 'Restroom' in white letters. Once everyone was done selecting their bunks they all headed towards the Armory,

"Huh, no password yet" Lopez muttered looking at the screen, "I got an idea" he muttered quickly while typing on the console, "New code: A REAPER NEEDS HIS SCYTHE, all in capitals" he said loud enough for everyone to hear the code so that they all have the ability to access the room. He looked around with a smile on his face and noticed that everyone else had a smile on their face as well. He quickly entered the code into the terminal, there was a bleep and the light above the door turned from red to green and the door slowly slid into the wall revealing racks, lining the northern wall, holding their armor which were jet black with a steel gray colored visor on each suit, Samantha's visor was slightly larger than the rest of theirs but considering that she was a pilot and needed to be able to see it was a necessity. Under each suit was a plaque with the owner's name on it, Higgins found his own suit and noticed that there were no emblems on the armor indicating it was of GDI origin. Attached to the back of the suit was a jump jet that could launch him and his men about four hundred feet high and about a mile and a half forwards on full burn. He also noticed his weapon locker next to the suit of armor. He walked over and opened the locker and a giant smile plastered his face, for the contents of the locker included a Commando standard issue Q-17, .45 caliber, Silenced Sub-Machine Gun, affectionately nicknamed 'Whisperer' by the men who used them, their was also three fragmentation grenades and two flash bang grenades. However the one thing grabbed his attention was the LX-9 Semi-Automatic, a weapon that he earned from scoring high in the CQB fields, it was magazine fed, 10 Gauge shotgun with a 2¼ foot barrel. He took it out and slammed a clip into the gun, admiring the clicking sound the gun made and aimed down the sights at the wall and was surprised at how light it felt fully loaded. He took the clip out and stowed the shotgun back into the locker and closed it. He looked over and saw the team's only sniper, Jessica, was admiring her VC-67 .50 caliber sniper rifle, which had a four foot length from the butt to the tip of the barrel, making slight adjustments to the scope she seemed pleased with it and stowed it back in the locker, she earned the nasty piece of equipment by scoring high in the Long-Range fields. Eric and Nathan, who also scored high in the CQB fields, were admiring their LX-9s. Jonas was admiring his B-9 Shoulder Mounted Rocket Launcher with low-yield missiles so it can be lighter, he received this toy of destruction by earning high scores in the Demolition fields, he also got three, two pound, sticks of C4. Lopez, Malcolm, and Hernandez earned high points in the Assault fields so they earned more spaces for Whisperer clips and more fragmentation grenades. On the opposite side of the room were crates upon crates, upon crates of ammo, missiles, and grenades. Higgins earpiece started beeping indicating he had someone trying to reach him. He lifted his finger up and held down the button,

"Higgins here" he said, still inspecting the equipment he was going to use in the battle field,

"Higgins, it's Farnes, I need you in the Op Center ASAP" Farnes responded over the com. Higgins put back his equipment and shut his locker and started heading towards the Op Center,

"I'm on my way" he responded. When he walked out and he saw the fridge again his stomach started to growl. 'Damn man' he thought to himself. He grabbed a energy bar from the drawers and walked into the Op Center to see Kimble furiously typing away at a computer and Farnes staring at a Plasma screen TV, mounted on the southern wall, it was the symbols on the screen that told Higgins why he was called in here, 'First time around' he thought. Farnes noticed him and waved him over to get a closer look,

"Higgins, command just contacted me and said that a Nod cell just conducted a guerilla attack on a civilian school, a goddamn school for Christ's sake" he yelled, he took a deep breath and continued, "Command wants us to go in and wipe the bastards off the map. But, because of the freedom that command gave us we can decline this mission if we feel there is a more pressing matter that needs to be taking care of, and since you're the commander of this outfit, it's your call" he finished. Higgins was studying the screen and enemy positions,

"What is this place I'm looking at?" he asked while motioning towards the screen with one hand,

"That is a pre-fab structure located about three kilometers East from the town attacked" Farnes responded,

"What do you think is the best course of action?" Higgins asked. Farnes turned his head and looked at Higgins with a quizzical look. Higgins noticed this and explained the reason why,

"You got us out of Lisbon even after the shit hit the fan, you're a good strategist" Farnes' expression changed from a quizzical look to a confident look and looked back to the screen and started to study it,

"Well, you got a good amount of hostiles guarding the perimeter, these guys are professional. The only way I see to enter the base is to conduct a halo jump onto the roof of the complex. You will have to use the jump jets to slow your fall. Once your on the roof you can enter through the door on the Northeast corner of the roof. Inside the structure I suggest heading to the armory located here" he pointed towards the area on the map and continued, "in the south east corner on the floor right below the roof. Plant C4 there and the entire building will come down on top of them. As for evac, I say jump jet outside of the eastern perimeter, since it's the only side that doesn't have a tib field, and Samantha will be there to pick you all up and bring you home. Command also wants you to eliminate a Nod colonel if the opportunity presents itself. Any questions?" Farnes took in a deep breath after explaining a pretty detailed plan of attack for Higgins. Higgins was thinking the plan over and than something hit him,

"Won't the jump jets make a lot of noise when we use them to slow us down after the free fall?" he asked Farnes, who quickly shook his head,

"The jump jets that command gave us have been specially modified to emit as little light and sound as possible but still be as powerful as a normal one. So, unless they're looking straight at you, and even than it'll be hard, they won't see you. And if your worried about the impact, remember that the boots of your armor have been specially made to absorb rough landings such as this" Farnes explained. Higgins nodded and patted Farnes on the back,

"Alright, looks like we're heading out. See you when we get back" he said and walked out of the Op Center. As soon as the door closed Farnes looked at his assistant and said,

"I hope this works" Kimble just nodded back and went back to typing. Farnes sighed and stared at the screen going over his plan in his head one last time.

"Alright, ladies and… what the hell?" Higgins stood in shock in the lounge because painted on the wall near the pool table was a cloaked figure, with the blackness of the raised hood covering his face, with skeletal hands holding a steel gray LX-9 with the butt against his shoulder but the barrel pointing, going across the form, pointing at the floor and, since the figure was rotated a little, you could see a steel gray jump jet attached to his back. In blood red above the figure, it read 'Reapers' in all capital letters with a couple streams of paint running down about half a foot for added effect. Higgins could tell it was freshly painted. He smiled and thought 'Goddamn that's perfect',

"You like it?" he heard a male voice ask behind him. He turned around and saw Lopez standing there with his arms crossed smiling at the picture as well. Around the lounge he could see everyone stop what they were doing and look at him awaiting his answer,

"Hell yeah I like it, you guys work fats don't you" he said, everyone shared looks with each other with smiles on their faces.

"But, I've got bad news. We received our first orders. Reapers! Arm up and mount up, let's move!" Everyone immediately stopped what they were doing completely and ran to the armory, first person opening the door, and started getting their equipment on and ready to go. Higgins calmly walked in and put his armor on, sliding on his helmet last, he checked the systems and the ammo pouches to make sure they were full and functional. He grabbed the Whisperer, slammed a clip into it from one of the crates, and slung it across his back, he already had his pistol holstered in the thigh holster, and than he grabbed the shotgun, slamming a clip into it, and held it in both hands proudly and yelled out,

"Reapers! Let's send them to hell" everyone yelled out curses to Nod or just yelled affirmatives and everyone rushed out to the Hammerhead to begin their new jobs as GDI's highly classified commando team. Higgins closed the armory door, being the last one out, and as he was running out thought, 'Wonder how long the men are going to have this amount of joy for missions'

_**A/N: A lot of details to soak in. Oh, and FatDude… your welcome. Anyways, join us next time for another installment of The Few…**_

_**Posted every weekend**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	7. Chapter 7: Feet First

_**A/N: Um, hello all, I am VERY disappointed with you! I'M NOT GETTING CONSTANT REVIEWS! NOOOOOOO! Just kidding, I don't care if you don't review, because I WILL FINISH THIS STORY! I know I sucked at grammar in the last chapter but, I was tired so… deal with it! I already have most of it planned (mentally) so, um, yeah, have fun. Anyways, ENJOY CHAPTER 7!**_

Chapter 7: Feet First Into Hell

Four kilometers away from the Nod outpost

Western France

Time: 2328 Hours (11:28 PM)

"_Reaper Lead, Reaper Air. Two minutes 'til drop" _Samantha said over the encrypted com channel.

"Reaper Air, Reaper Lead. Hard copy" Higgins checked his gear quickly than, once everything was to his standards, stood up and faced the rest of the team in the Hammerhead's troop bay

"Alright Reapers, listen up. ETA to drop is two minutes, so gear up and get ready. We're going feet first people! We will send as many militants as we can to hell. Am I understood?"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

"That's what I like to hear!" Higgins than ran a short systems check on his jump jet. In about three minutes his life would depend on the small contraption. 'I hope this goes according to plan' he thought. He than mentally kicked himself for thinking like that, it would surely get them all killed.

"_Reaper Lead, Reaper Base. ETA 'til drop, one minute. Good luck"_

"Reaper Base, Reaper Lead. We are ready to drop. Next scheduled contact will be once the mission is accomplished, Reaper Lead out" Higgins checked the countdown timer on his HUD,

"Reaper team, line up! Thirty seconds 'til drop!" Everyone quickly, but calmly, lined up at the ramp that was now ajar revealing the black, cold, air outside. Higgins took his place at the front of the line and waited. The wait seemed like it took years but after awhile the countdown timer on his HUD flashed **0 seconds**,

"_Reaper Team, go, go, go!" _Higgins took a deep breath and than ran right off the edge of the ramp. Immediately he entered the spread eagle form, where his limbs were spread across as wide an area as possible in order to slow his decent to a more maintainable speed. He looked at his HUD and saw that the rest of Reaper Team were now free-falling with him and were slowly coming into a box formation. The team were soaring through clouds at terminal velocity, causing them to separate.

"Reaper Lead, to all. Check in"

"_Reaper two, good to go" _Jonas

"_Reaper three, ready to kick ass" _Malcolm

"_Reaper four, let's get on with it" _Nathan

"_Reaper five, hoorah!" _Hernandez

"_Reaper six, green across the board" _Lopez

"_Reaper seven, point out the target" _Jessica

"_Reaper eight, let's give 'em hell" _Eric

"Reaper Lead to all, roll call complete, activate jump jets…" Higgins glanced at his altimeter real quick to make sure they were at the right altitude, "…now! Activate!" The whole team, at once switched their bodies from a horizontal position to a vertical position and activated their jump jets, with a flash of light and a slight coughing sound, slowing them down from terminal velocity to 20 mph. They impacted the roof and, after completing a combat roll to dissipate the effects of the landing, stood up with weapons up and aiming ahead of them. They immediately, and silently, fanned out and secured the rooftop, annihilating three militants who were guarding the perimeter from the corners of the roof.

"Alright Reapers, form up on me" Higgins was next to the, now open, roof access, when he heard multiple footsteps come up behind him. With a quick hand brushing up against his shoulder as an affirmative, he brought his Whisperer to bear and advanced down the stairs slowly but surely, watching out for anything that could bring harm to him or his men while they made their way to the base's armory. As he came up to the door that would lead to the second floor he put his back to the wall, and motioning for his team to do the same, started advancing to the door. He stopped when he was touching the door well and motioned for his team to do the same. Once he was satisfied that they were all halted and staying alert he slowly pulled out a fiber-optic cable from a pouch on his armor and connected one end, the end with wires sticking out, to a outlet on his helmet, causing a small screen to appear in the lower-right hand corner of his HUD showing what the other end of the cable was able to see. He turned and nodded at the team and crouched down, sticking the camera under the door at the same time. He panned the camera left and right scanning the hallway that was on the other side of it. He took note of two militants that seemed to be patrolling the hallway. He frowned at how they looked, walking casually, almost non-caring, with guns slung over their shoulder and weren't even paying attention to their surroundings. He withdrew the camera and, detaching it from his helmet, stashed it back into it's appropriate pouch and stood up. He motioned for Reaper Two to go on the opposite side of the door for the tactical entry. Once they were in position he opened the door just enough to where he could see the backs of the now receding hallway guards. He eased his SMG through the tiny crack and aimed dead center at the guy on the left and, taking a deep breath, pulled the trigger. The, now dead, militant fell to the floor but Higgins didn't notice, he quickly switched targets and put a bullet in the back of the other militant's head, effectively silencing him, but it wasn't enough. Higgins heard a couple gasps come from around the corner of the hallway followed by several people shouting out orders, 'Fuck!' his team were trained for this though, only two things that could be done, 'Go loud and finish the mission'

"Alright, covers blown, Reapers Five and Six, cover this hallway, rest of you, on me, let's move!" Higgins shoved the door opened and rushed out, heading down the hall, away from the two dead militants, towards the base's armory. Hernandez and Lopez quickly took up positions to cover the team's rear and to keep the exfill route secure. The rest of the team rounded the corner seeing multiple, unarmed, militants rushing into a room,

"Open up!" Higgins quickly followed his own order and started mowing down the people still trying to get into the room but he couldn't shake the voice that kept telling him that this was immoral, 'They'll kill me without thinking twice as well' he thought and the other voice disappeared. Higgins noticed that there were no more militants inside the hallway. He moved up to the door, presumably leading to the armory, with the rest of the team following close behind. With his back slammed against the wall and standing near the door he pulled out a flash bang grenade and, pulling the pin, tossed it into the room,

"Grenade!" he yelled, turning his head away from the door to avoid being blinded by the flash that was soon to come. Than it happened, a loud boom that almost deafened him and his team and than he noticed the flash out of the corner of his eye. After he saw the light he quickly brought his SMG to bear and stormed into the room. Inside were several stunned and disoriented militants holding their ears or rubbing their eyes trying to fight off the effects the flash bang brought on them. He took a millisecond pause wondering if this was right, 'They would kill you and your friends without remorse' he cleared his head and before the thought could come back, he squeezed down on the trigger, mowing down the militants. Once the room was clear he quickly took a look at the room. There were rack upon racks and crates upon crates of guns, ammo, missiles, mines, and various other tools of death. 'Goddamn…' he quickly snapped out of his trance and began barking out orders in order to bring this building down on top of these bastards,

"Reaper Two, begin your magic. Reapers Three and Four cover the hallway. Reapers Seven and Eight, try to take inventory of as much of this equipment as you can for later study. Reapers Five and Six report!"

"_Reaper Lead, Reaper Five. Holding our own"_

"Reaper Five, Reaper Lead. Keep it up" With that he turned and noticed that his team were already in the midst of completing the orders he gave them. He smiled at the fact that he was deep behind enemy lines and was still able to enjoy the fact that he was now a commando and had so much freedom in missions.

"Reaper Lead, Reaper Two. Bombs placed, arming now… want it on a timer or trigger?" Higgins could actually hear the happiness in his voice over the fact that he was playing with his bombs.

"Reaper Two, Reaper Lead. Trigger is good, don't need it blowing up too early now" the sigh that Jonas let out, even without the com, was loud enough for Higgins to hear. He just smiled to himself and shook his head, 'Damn fools gonna blow us to hell'

"Reaper Lead, Reaper Two. Bombs are armed, I repeat bombs are armed"

"Reaper Two, Reaper Lead. Solid copy, all Reapers, head to the roof now! I repeat, head to the roof now and jump jet east out of the walled area towards the exfill point!" Higgins bounded out of the room with the other Reapers close on his heels. As he rounded the corner into the first corridor they entered he noticed that Reapers Five and Six were still engaged with some militants,

"Reapers Five and Six! Wait 'til everyone passes you and than follow 'em up!" the two soldiers muttered quick affirmatives and Higgins nodded and ran up the stairs, two at a time. When he reached the roof he sprinted out onto it, he quickly regretted doing that. Multiple machine guns, that were positioned in the guard towers, opened up on him but he kept on running towards the eastern side of the roof, 'Too late now' he thought.

"All Reapers! Hostile MG emplacements have the roof in their sites, your gonna have to just haul ass and hope you don't get it" Higgins ran in a zigzag pattern and every couple seconds, he'd roll to the left or jump to the right. He was only a couple feet away from the edge of the roof when a bullet flew through the air and hit him in his right calf, causing him to fall and roll. He quickly stood back up and activated his jump jet, since the roll brought him right next to the edge of the roof, he flew through the air with vulgar language spilling out of his mouth. On his HUD he noticed that the rest of the team were in the air following him towards the exfill point,

"Reaper Team, Reaper Lead. Report!"

"_Reaper Two, can't wait for the explosion"_

"_Reaper Three, worried about Reaper Two"_

"_Reaper Four, got nicked in the arm but I'm good to go"_

"_Reaper Five, low on ammo"_

"_Reaper Six, still green across the board"_

"_Reaper Seven, my baby's feeling unloved"_

"_Reaper Eight, inventory duty sucks"_

"Reaper Team, Reaper Lead. Got a bullet in my calf so my landing will not be graceful. Other than that, great teamwork on finishing the mission" after he was finished with this he noticed that he was about to hit the ground. He quickly brought his right leg up and moved his left foot down so that it took the brunt of the impact. He hit the ground with a grunt and rolled to a stop laying down, facing the sky. After a couple seconds the pain from the impact finally registered in his brain, he started grinding his teeth and grabbed hold of the open wound in his calf. He rolled his body to the left so he was on his side and started digging through his butt pack,

"Found you" he pulled out a morphine, one-use, needle and, rolling back onto his back, stabbed it into the wound, grinding his teeth even harder as he did but the pain slowly started to subside. He reached back around, rolling back onto his side, and dug into his medical pouch again and pulled out a white gauze pad and put it onto the wound in order to try to soak up the blood and than he got out a roll of black gauze and, rolling back onto his back, started wrapping it around the wound in order to maintain a constant pressure on the wound to help stop the bleeding. He heard a couple of footsteps running towards him that his HUD identified as Lopez's footsteps. After only a couple seconds he was kneeling next to his calf helping him wrap it up and pin it still,

"Sir, were you hit anywhere else?"

"No"

"Do you know exactly how many bullets hit you?"

"One"

"Did you use your morphine?"

"Yes"

"Alright, come on, this is all we can do here" with that Lopez helped Higgins stand and helped him walk to where the rest of the team were waiting,

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, form a perimeter and guard this spot" the team fanned out and aimed their weapons at any spot outside of their circle.

"_Reaper Lead, Reaper Air. Got bad news. Nod militants are currently on their way towards the current EZ. They have RPGs, coupled with the fact that they have SAM sites that have a firing range that reaches the EZ. Sir, the only clear zone is gonna be inside the town that was attacked. I'm sorry sir. Good news is that a Rifleman company has secured the town so they can hold off, and repel, the assault"_

"Reaper Air, Reaper Lead. Hard copy, we'll be there, out" Higgins checked the ammo in his Whisperer and, seeing that there were only a couple rounds left, ejected the clip and slapped a new one into the SMG. He turned his head towards the direction where the militant outpost was and frowned when he saw it still standing in the distance.

"Jonas" he waved Jonas over when he turned his head towards him. Jonas came running up and stopped right next to Higgins, who was still staring at the outpost.

"What's up?"

"Blow that place to hell" Jonas smiled and pulled out the remote detonator,

"Gladly" he chuckled and than depressed the button on the detonator causing all three bundles of C4 to explode and, coupled with the ammunition in the armory, blew a crater in the ground half a mile wide. Higgins, and most of the team, were smiling wide but than he remembered where they had to go and his smile disappeared,

"Reaper Lead to all. Reaper Air says that we need to head to the nearby town since it is threatened by hostile missile troopers and SAM sites. Everyone jump jet on full burn towards the town" the team muttered affirmatives and quickly activated their jump jets and rocketed away. Higgins stared at the smoking ruins for a couple of seconds and, sighing, turned away and activating his jump jet, rocketed away after his team.

He landed next to them with a thud and some pain, but most of it was masked by the morphine he had used,

"_Unidentified personnel, this is Charlie Company of the 141st__ Yellow Zone Defense Battalion, identify yourselves or you will be shot" _Higgins just started walking towards the edge of the city with his team in tow,

"_Halt or you will be annihilated" _Higgins continued walking but he could feel the hesitation of his team,

"Run Serial Number Zero-Zero-Alpha-Sierra" there was silence on the channel and Higgins could tell that he confused the Company's CO. Finally, after he had walked a few more steps the CO came back on the com and announced what Higgins knew would happen,

"_All I'm getting is the word 'Classified' flashing across the screen but it does show the GDI eagle in the corner so… I guess your friendly, come on through"_

"Don't worry, we'll be gone before you know it" the sound of the Hammerhead in the distance was getting louder and louder,

"_Did you cause the explosion?" _Higgins smiled at the comment and stayed silent as Samantha landed the Hammerhead in the park. Multiple civilians were out of there houses to see what was causing the noise. As he was boarding the Hammerhead he reopened the com channel and said,

"Nope, you did, we were never here" with that the Hammerhead's ramp closed and it lifted off into the air and turned towards the direction where the base was and sped through the air leaving behind a smoking crater and a very confused Company CO.

_**A/N: Alright, Chapter 7: DONE! What did ya think of their first mission? In the next chapter there will be a time lapse (SPOILER ALERT)! Also, it's a little late but if any of the people who are reading this story and are able to draw, feel free to draw any of the scenes in this story. My only request is that you send a link to the picture to my fanfic account, I'd love to see what scenes you guys see the most and how you see them. Join in next time for the next installment of The Few!**_

_**POSTED EVERY WEEKEND!**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	8. Chapter 8: Calm Before The Storm

_**A/N: Here's Chapter 8. This is gonna be a non-violent chapter. It will mostly be for character development. I am not good at character development in a peaceful environment however so… this might suck**_

Chapter 8: Calm Before the Storm

**Four Months Later**

Reaper Op Center

Western France

Time: 0500 Hours

Higgins stirred in his bed trying to reawaken his mind to the world. As he regained full use of his body one scent caught his attention the most. He slowly opened his eyes and surveyed the barracks, only to see that it was empty. He yawned and slowly climbed out of his bunk and stumbled to the showers. After he was washed up and clean he came back into the barracks and quickly put on the black fatigues that were the new standard uniform that command made them use, the reason of which was unknown to Higgins and he wasn't one to question an order so he and his team just switched overnight from urban camo to plain black. He allowed some freedom with the uniforms, his only rules were that you must wear the boots, pants, and must have some sort of firearm, with ammo, on your person. The squad must also have all of their personal regions covered with clothing. Keeping all these rules of his in mind he pulled on his black fatigue pants, a steel gray tank-top, pulled on and laced up his boots, and, lastly, he grabbed his two thigh rigs, one with his pistol and the other which held six pistol mags, he attached the holster to his right thigh and the mags to his left thigh. He stood up and quickly examined his gear. The door from the lounge drew his attention as it opened from behind him. He quickly turned his head to see who it was and smiled when he saw that it was Samantha, who smiled back at him,

"Finally up and about?" she asked

"Nah, I thought it'd be interesting to sleep in full gear for awhile" he replied

"Smartass"

"Better than a jackass" Samantha, who was now standing next to him, punched him in the shoulder with an air of seriousness but the smile on her face betrayed that seriousness. Samantha was the only person on the team who wore the entire uniform, with the hat shoved inside a pocket when she was indoors, and she always had her sunglasses somewhere on her person. He than noticed that they were staring at each other and quickly said,

"Ahem, shall we?" he motioned towards the door and instantly Samantha's face turned five different shades of red and she looked away from him,

"Sure" they walked out of the barracks, avoiding eye contact, and entered the lounge where the rest of the top secret team was located. He looked around trying to get a sense of what everyone else were currently up to. Malcolm and Eric were playing pool, Malcolm wore no shirt and Eric wore a tank-top like Higgins's, Jessica, Jonas, and Lopez were at the personal entertainment center watching some old action movies, Jessica wore a black sports bra while Jonas wore a white short-sleeve shirt and Lopez wore a steel-gray short-sleeve shirt, Nathan appeared to be cooking what smelled like eggs and bacon, he had on a black vest with pockets like the normal fatigue top, and finally Hernandez, Farnes and Kimble were sitting at the tables hitting their meals, Hernandez had on a black short-sleeve shirt while Farnes and Kimble preferred to wear steel-gray dress uniforms.

"Yo, Higgins, finally up I see" Malcolm said while he sank a solid-color ball,

"That I am. I'm also hungry as hell"

"Heads up!" Higgins turned to look at the one who yelled that only to be met with a disk shaped object hurtling towards him. He quickly snatched it out of the air and examined what the object was. It seemed to be a plat with foil over it, he removed the foil and saw the eggs and bacon as well as a fork, he sat down at the couch and yelled out,

"Thanks!"

"Nice catch" was Nathan's reply. Higgins looked at the TV screen and saw men in tan and brown fatigues with green vests running in a desert,

"What is this?"

"Black Hawk Down. A classic" Jonas replied,

"Like hell, The Road is better, it actually has more than one point to it" Jessica retorted

"Black Hawk Down is about brotherhood and friendship"

"The Road is about family and survival"

"I think We Are Soldiers is the best" Lopez finally said,

"I think you all should just shut the hell up and watch the damn movie" Eric said while he lined up a shot at the pool table,

"I agree" Higgins muttered as he watched the scenes of the movie unfold. The scenes that unfolded reminded him of the current war that was happening. It reminded him of how the GDI were trying to help the civilians but instead of them welcoming the soldiers they drew arms and fought.

"Your fucking cheating!" Higgins turned to look at the pool table and saw a really pissed Eric yelling

"No I'm not you blind fucktard!" Malcolm yelled back

"Bloody hell" Samantha muttered from beside him while also looking at the scene that was unfolding, she shook her head disapprovingly and yelled, "Hey you dumb blokes, we're trying to watch the tele, so shut the fuck up" everyone instantly went silent and stared at her. She, in turn, stared at everyone in the face and said, "What? Never hear a Brit yell before?" she than stormed out of the lounge outside towards the Hammerhead, which she called the _Reaper's Cloak_.

"Well than, nice going you dipshits" Jessica said as she went after Samantha

"What the hell bit them in the ass?" Eric muttered,

"Shut the fuck up Eric" Hernandez said,

"Yeah man, you started this whole mess" Nathan chimed in,

"Fuck you all" Eric responded as he stormed into the Barracks.

"Well, nice to know that this time is functioning perfectly" Farnes said as he shoved a forkful of eggs into his mouth,

"Just be glad none of them remembered they had a gun on 'em" Higgins stated. Everyone stared off into space as they thought about how worse it could have been, especially since Eric is the only on in the team that carries his Whisperer, everywhere with him.

"Alrighty than, I'll go make sure Eric is ok" Lopez said,

"And I'll go check on Sam" Higgins said as he started walking out of the structure. He opened the door and entered the cool air of Western France, he looked up and noticed that it was about to rain. He quickly walked to the landing pad and rounded around the corner of _Reaper's Cloak _that would lead to the ramp. As he rounded the corner he mumbled a curse and quickly went back around the way he came. Pacing in front of the closed ramp was a Tib Fiend, one being this far away from a tib field meant that the fields were expanding. Higgins reached for his com headset but quickly cursed when he remembered that he left it in the Barracks in the confusion of his encounter with Sam. He slowly pulled out his pistol and made sure that it was loaded. He held the pistol in both hands with his right index finger outside, on the side, of the trigger guard with it pointed at the ground. He rounded and faced the Fiend, he raised his left hand with his palm facing the creature,

"Hey, I'm not here to hurt you" he said as calm as he could. The creature's head turned to look at him with it's eyeless face. It opened it's mouth showing black, obsidian-like, teeth and growled at Higgins. The tib spikes on it's back started pulsating and vibrating.

"Can I just get my friends out of there, we'll leave you alone" it looked at _Reaper's Cloak _and than turned back at Higgins and growled some more. It started putting it's weight on it's hind legs in a manner that a cheetah does when it's about to pounce on it's prey. Higgins acted faster than he thought he could, he quickly raised up his pistol with both hands and was able to shoot twice before the Fiend tackled him. Using the momentum of the contact he rolled the Fiend over to where it was at the bottom and, being sure to avoid getting cut by one of it's tib spikes, started trying to pin it to the ground but the beast was stronger than him, and it was intelligent. It raised it's legs and kicked him off of it sending him flying and landing on the ground with a thud. He rolled his head to the side and saw his pistol that flew out of his hand when the thing tackled him. He quickly rolled towards it, grabbed it, and jumped to his feet. He looked at the Fiend in time to see it pull it's spikes out of the ground and get on it's feet. Higgins was able to see the green fluid that the creature had as blood coming from the two bullet wounds. The creature lowered it's head and growled softly and ran off. He kept his pistol in his right hand as he cautiously moved towards the craft making sure the Fiend won't come out of nowhere and tackle him again. He knocked on the ramp and yelled out,

"Hey, it's Higgins, open up" there was no response but before he could repeat what he said the ramp lowered and he was greeted with two pistols being shoved in his face. He quickly raised his left hand in a unthreatening manner. The pistols withdrew being replaced by the relieved faces of the teams two females,

"Where did it go?" Sam asked as she slowly stood up staring past Higgins,

"It ran off, to where, I don't know. Come on, let's go into the base"

"Wait, why did it run off, what did you do?" Jessica asked,

"I do not know, I just wrestled with it for awhile and it ran off after knocking me off of it" Jessica and Sam stared at each other for a couple seconds and than started walking out of the Hammerhead, and walked inside. Higgins shook his head and walked outside, after hitting the 'Close' button for the ramp. He stepped into a light sprinkle that was quickly becoming a downpour. He was about to enter the base when he heard a sort of demonic howl. He turned to where the noise came from and saw the Fiend staring at him from a far distance away.

"The Reaper's test" he muttered to himself as the Fiend turned and ran off. He stood there staring off into space as the rain pelted him with growing frequency. He shook his head and walked back inside the building thinking of many different ways that scenario could have turned out.

_**A/N: Yeah… it was better than I thought. I tried not to include any action but… I just couldn't help myself. I'm sure I'm gonna get some shit for the Fiend scene but whatever… I thought it was pretty good. Please review on this chapter so I know if it was good or not or if the Fiend fight was entertaining enough for you action lovers. Tune in next time for the next installment of The Few…**_

_**Posted Every Weekend**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	9. Chapter 9: Feelings

_**A/N: Alright… this is Chapter 9. Hope you enjoy!**_

Chapter 9: Feelings

**Two Days After Fiend Incident**

Reaper Op Center

Western France

Time: 1043 Hours (10:43 AM)

Higgins was leaning against the wall outside of the base staring into the distance. 'Why did it spare me? Why did it run off?' these questions and many more were going through his mind with such a ferocity that he didn't hear the door opening and someone walking up next to him.

"Higgins, you've been out here every second you're awake. Is the Fiend encounter troubling you that much?" Higgins snapped out of his trance and looked over at where the voice came from to be met by a soft, slightly freckled, face with eyes that showed pure concern,

"Sam, I… yes, I guess so. Fiends aren't supposed to leave anyone alive, let alone run from a fight"

"Fiends, even though they don't seem like it, are animals and animals learn not to stick their noses where it hurts. You shot it twice and were ready to shoot it again. It realized this and ran off"

"I guess your right. Just…"

"Just?"

"Nothing" he placed his hand on his forehead and slid it down his face, he than looked back at the horizon but before he lost himself again his earpiece began to beep. He raised his hand up and hit the button on the device,

"Yo"

"Higgins, command has a mission for us, it's big. Get in here. Now!" he looked at Samantha who looked clueless to what was happening,

"Another mission came in for us, I better go see what it is, come on" she nodded and they both walked to the door side-by-side. When they arrived at the door, Higgins opened it and allowed Samantha to walk in first who smiled at him with a hint of seductiveness. He smiled wide and walked inside after her, regaining his composure as he did so. Once he entered he noticed that everyone was staring at him and the ones that he did see were giving him reassuring nods that practically screamed, "We're behind you, no matter what" He entered the actual Op Center of the base. As he shut the door he noticed that Farnes was staring at the Tactical Screen. He glanced over at Kimble who was at a monitor typing stuff in. They both had an air of concern about them that was so strong it about consumed him. He walked up to Farnes to look at the screen and saw what was worrying the Operations Officer. The screen showed a Nod base that consisted of a Tiberium Refinery, Hand of Nod, and one of their Sacred Temples but at the bottom of the screen flashing in dark green letters were the words 'Covert Agent Pick-up'

"Farnes, is this for real? We've never done this before and in the middle of one of their outposts to top it? There must be at least a division size force there from the size of that HoD plus we're gonna be defending this agent who can't fight back because they're gonna put them right back out again? This is a bullshit mission!"

"You don't have to accept the mission if you don't want to but this came down from Major James himself and like I said, you don't have to accept it but he does have the power to overrule you"

"Farnes, in all that bitching I did where did I say I wasn't gonna accept it?"

"Alright than, now, I'm guessing you want me to provide your strategy" Higgins nodded while staring at the screen, mentally preparing to go over Farnes plan in his head, "Ok, well, you will have to land at the southern end of the base here" a section of left at the lower-right hand corner of the temple lit up green, "from there command says that the agent is within the temple itself awaiting the pick-up. After you secure the agent you are to withdraw back to the LZ and head back to base. Once back we will extract any information from the agent and act on it accordingly. How does that sound?" Higgins had a look of disbelief on his face and finally he said,

"Are you shitting me?"

"Excuse me?" Farnes asked, surprised

"You want my team to land inside the Nod outpost that is most likely bristling with militants wanting to rip off our heads! Than you want us to just waltz into their temple, which to those maniacs is the holiest thing they've ever set foot in, grab the agent and just walk out of there after having a glass of wine with them! So, I'll ask again. Are you shitting me?" Higgins practically yelled at him stressing the words that needed to be stressed. Both Farnes and Kimble were staring at him surprised. After a minute Farnes finally regained his composure and said,

"Our satellites have been monitoring that outpost for weeks in preparation for this pick-up. There has been no movement of infantry except for an APC that dropped off the agent and left afterwards. There hasn't even been a harvester out there. This base is abandoned" Higgins stared at the screen in deep thought, contemplating on what Farnes has said, 'This doesn't seem right… but… James will override my decision, Fuck!'

"I'll do it" he finally said. Farnes nodded and started walking to the bank of monitors where Kimble was sitting at,

"Suit up than. Let's get this plan moving" Higgins walked out of the of the Op Center with a feeling that the shit was gonna hit the fan. As he entered the Lounge he turned towards the Armory and walked to the terminal next to it and, after typing in the passcode, he opened the heavy metal door. He turned to the rest of the Lounge to see everyone staring at him,

"We got a mission! Suit up!" everyone stopped what they were doing and stormed into the Armory to get their gear together,

"What's wrong?" he shook his head to get his brain back to the real world and looked at where the voice came from to see Samantha standing there with a worried face, 'Damn, I'm bad at hiding my emotions'

"Just a feeling" he quickly regretted that choice of words by the fact that her worried look grew even more worried, "It's probably nothing. Come on let's suit up" her worried look was instantly with a flirtatious one,

"You like that don't you"

"Just get in there" he said trying to maintain a serious voice but epically failing. She tossed him a smile and walked inside. He shook his head, smiling to himself, and walked in afterwards. Ignoring the knowing smiles of the rest of the team he made it to his locker and started the painful process of getting suited up in his armor. He, like everyone else on the team, had to remove his boots and pants before he was able to slip into the standard issue Kevlar jumpsuit that he wore beneath his armor. Once it was on and zipped up he started attaching the armor plates that provided stronger protection to vital parts of the body such as the chest, where the heart and lungs are located, the femoral artery, located in the thigh, and the most important, at least in Higgins and the other male's heads, the groin. Once the armor plates were attached and secured he started the painful process of attaining clips of ammo for his weapons and stashing them inside the appropriate pouches. He also had to grab, and slip into a pouch, his canteen, map, binoculars, and various other field tools. Next he grabbed his weapons and positioned in the correct spots on his armor. Lastly he pulled his helmet off of the rack and, after soothing the padding inside it, slipped it onto his head and activated his HUD. Instantly his vision was filled with views of his ammo counter in the top-left corner, his radar in the bottom-right corner, a view of his body's current health status in the bottom-left corner, and the tactical video display, which was currently showing an image of the GDI eagle, in the top-right corner. At the top of the visor was the current time of the area while at the bottom of the view was the objective view area, which currently was displaying the words 'Retrieve Target Person' in flashing green letters.

"A capture mission?" Malcolm asked as he stared at the wall, most likely reading information on his HUD,

"Yes. James sent us this mission request himself. We will land at the base, nab the HVP, and return to here so that Farnes and his girlfriend can retrieve any information they hold" everyone laughed a bit at the last comment and once everyone was fully suited up and their systems were checked and green they gathered around Higgins,

"Alright Reaper Team! Get to the _Reaper's Cloak_ and let's prove our worth to the big men!" everyone nodded and hustled out of the room. Higgins looked around once more and exited the room. As he was closing the door he heard footsteps approaching from behind. He turned around and was met with the steel-gray visor of a reaper helmet. Judging by the size of the visor however he quickly deduced that the person standing in front of him was none other than Samantha, 'Damn she looks great in her armor' he quickly noticed he was staring at sections of her body that he shouldn't and looked back at the visor to see that her head was tilted is a teasing manner.

"Like what you see?" she asked, giggling a little,

"Yes, yes I do" he responded as he moved closer to her. She giggled again and, setting the forehead of her helmet against his she said,

"Not here, not now. Your going to have to wait a bit" she than separated from him and walked out the door to the Hammerhead where the rest of the team were patiently waiting for them. He quickly followed out the door and into the craft. He found a seat near the cockpit and finally noticed that everyone else in the craft, helmets on or no, who looking at him, some with wide smiles on their face.

"You want to tell us something sir?" Lopez remarked

"Yeah, like, what's going on between you and Sam maybe?" Hernandez added in,

"Nothing's happening" Higgins responded,

"Bullshit! You and her are in love aren't you?" Jessica asked,

"Shit. Yes, we are, what's wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothing sir, just find it amusing" Jonas said,

Higgins shook his head and settled into the seat. It was gonna be one long trip.

_**A/N: Really, REALLY, short. Sorry it was short but, I just didn't really see a great way to change the whole thing from a peaceful, love filled, environment to one that is tense and demanding. That and the fact that the way this story is gonna go, it would be really messed up. Anyways! Please review on what you thought of this chapter or the ones before it. Alright, faithful readers, got bad news, next weeks installment will be postponed to the week after because I'm going camping for a week. Sorry if that in convinces any of you, although I doubt it. So, tune in the week after next for the next installment of The Few…**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	10. Chapter 10: Meant to Be

_**A/N: I'M BACK! But sadly… I have to leave AGAIN to go to Washington state to visit my g-dad who's in the hospital and I'll be there for about… two weeks and the return date is July 23rd**__** but more than likely I will NOT be able to create a chapter before that weekend. ANYWAYS! Back to the chapter that is about to BLOW… YOUR… MINDS! Enjoy… (Note: First part IS a flashback, don't freak)**_

Chapter 10: Meant To Be

Nearing Operative Pick-Up site

Northern Spain

Time: 1417 Hours (2:17 PM)

_Crickets were chirping in a nearby yard behind a nice two-story middle-class home located in the Vietnamese city of Tet. A high-pitched whistle interrupted the music of the crickets. The whistling was instantly replaced by a loud, ground-shaking, explosion. Many sounds suddenly filled the void the explosion left including the sounds of people screaming and yelling followed immediately by the burps of automatic weapons and the sharp cracks of sniper rifles. Jet engines and missiles finished what was quickly becoming a cluster fuck. A voice started speaking, it sounded close but was not raised. It was an endless mumble that was separated every twenty seconds by a short pause. Suddenly an intense pain flowed through the world of touch and sound. A sharp jabbing sensation immediately joined the pain and multiple thoughts started flooding into the world. 'What the hell? Why can't I see anything?'_

"_Come on damn it! Open your goddamned eyes!" the mystery voice was clear now but he still couldn't see a damned thing. 'Wait, he said to open my eyes.' With effort he dug into his mind and was finally able to remember many things, like his name, how to move, GDI basic training, but most importantly, he remembered how to open his eyes. When he was finally able to see again he was met with only one sight in front of him. A sigh was produced from the helmeted head that was in front of his face,_

"_Higgins! You okay?" the helmet asked. Higgins nodded and, after coughing a bit, was finally able to find his voice,_

"_Yeah, I think" he said. With that, the helmeted head receded and he was pulled to his feet. The helmet entered his view again and with it came another helmet. The second helmet however was not attached to a body and was shoved into Higgins' chest,_

"_Get your helmet on, than draw your pistol and follow me!" Higgins quickly donned the helmet and checked all of it's systems than grabbed his pistol and drew it out of it's holster. He checked the gun and made sure that it was loaded and cocked. 'Damn, I wish I had a rifle'_

"_Come on! Let's get to the front!" the helmet said before it, and the body it was attached to, turned around and ran towards what Higgins quickly remembered as the frontline of the fight that was underway. As he ran after the soldier he looked around the city and saw that entire buildings had been leveled, craters pockmarked the ground, and, worst of all, bodies, as well as body parts, littered the ground. They finally reached a barricade and immediately plopped down behind it,_

"_Nod militants are hitting us hard. We're on the left flank of the line. The center and right flanks will charge head-on while we have the job of flanking the Machine-Gun nests" the helmeted head was again facing him and talking . Higgins nodded but before he could move a spike suddenly grew out of the mystery soldier's chest. The spike glowed a sinister green and body it grew out of went limp and, after the spike receded, slowly fell to the ground. Once the body was all the way onto the ground Higgins was able to see what killed the man. Standing in front of him was an eyeless beast that had obsidian-like teeth, four legs, but the most protruding thing were the green, glowing, spikes that stuck out of the thing's back. The creature was 'staring' at Higgins and growled lowly and did something that Higgins didn't think was possible. The Fiend dipped it's head and than ran off into the darkness. The world than started shaking and voices started filling his head._

"_Get up!"_

"_Sir! You need to wake up!"_

"_Wake up!"_

"Huh… What?" Higgins slowly opened his eyes to be met with a warning screen in the middle of his visor. The screen was outlined in red and it said 'Brain Patterns: Hyperactive, Sped up REM. Alert closest medical staff'. Higgins closed the screen and than looked around the cabin of _Reaper's Cloak _to see seven helmeted heads staring at him. In the TVD was a view of Samantha's helmet and Higgins could feel the worry coming off of the entire team,

"Higgins, you okay?" Samantha asked, confirming that they were all worried about their leader.

"Yeah, I am. Why?" Everyone in the troop bay looked at each other and back at him,

"You were um… mumbling something in your sleep sir" Lopez responded,

"And jerking around in your sleep" Eric added. 'Shit' Higgins thought as he finally figured out that it wasn't a dream but a flashback of a operation that he was a part of before.

"What happened to you sir?" Hernandez asked. 'Lopez was there too if I remember correctly' Higgins thought to himself,

"Hernandez, some things are better left unsaid, but if you want to know, I'm sure Lopez remembers" seeing that Lopez tilted his head in confusion he sighed and than expanded on it, "Three and a half years ago, southern Asia" Lopez just stared at him for a couple seconds than he looked at the floor and just muttered a,

"Oh"

"Um, sir, you were involved in the second Tet Offensive?" Asked Nathan,

"Yes I was, and like I said, Lopez was there as well. And neither of us want to talk about it" Higgins responded.

"Um… not to interrupt the trip down memory lane but we're three minutes out from the LZ" Samantha said over the team wide radio,

"Alright, you heard her, grab your gear, double-check your weapons and let's get ready for the shit to hit the fan" everyone suddenly stopped and looked at him and he sighed before continuing with, "Oh come on. We're the Reapers, the most high-tech, most classified elite team ever assembled within the Global Defense Initiative and their sending us to go into a seemingly abandoned base to obtain a HVP that is supposedly unguarded. Something's not right" Everyone shared glances and than started checking their weapons with more fervor and even started to remove any un-essential gear, such as binoculars, maps, notepads, etc. Instead, they stashed ammo, grenades, and water into those pouches and started to triple-check their weapons. 'Well, if this mission goes FUBAR we'll be ready for the worst'

**Three Minutes Later**

_Reaper's Cloak _touched down gently inside a cloud of dust that it raised during it's descent. The eight black-armored Reapers came storming out of the craft with rifles raised and they quickly ran to the wall of the Nod temple that held the HVP and started slowly advancing along the wall with Higgins in the lead and Jonas taking up the rear. The Hammerhead lifted off the ground and started circling the base like a predator trapping it's prey. Higgins than went around the corner of the wall and approached the door of the temple, once he got to the door he, and three other Reaper's, went past the door and lined up along the wall to the left of the two-doored door. Higgins looked to the person leading the other group and silently held up his hand and used his fingers to count down from three to one. As soon as he put down his index finger he turned, kicked down the door, and rushed inside with his Q-17 raised and rushed down the center aisle side-by-side with the leader of the other group as everyone else spread out and started advancing forward towards what looked like a podium made out of a inert tiberium crystal. Standing behind said podium was a woman of about twenty-seven years old wearing a tight-fit, black, leather jacket with the Nod scorpion tail symbol on the left chest and Higgins guessed that she was wearing similar style pants. Her hair was charcoal black with a red highlight and was flowing down her back. As Higgins walked up to her he noticed that the rest of the team was close to her as well but he also noticed that she was talking,

"Your late"

"Excuse me?" Higgins asked as he lowered his SMG. Two Reapers approached her and binded her wrists together behind her and shoved her out from behind the podium and made her kneel in front of Higgins,

"Your late" she said again only this time she had a devious smile on her face and she slowly nodded. After a couple seconds it suddenly hit Higgins. Before he could say anything however a sharp crack was heard throughout the temple and something wet splattered on Higgins visor,

"Eric's down!" Jessica yelled over the noise,

"Ambush!" Lopez added. Higgins looked over to see Eric's headless corpse and froze.

_A green-glowing spike sticking out of the now limp body. Covered in blood._

"Sir, get down!" Malcolm yelled out. Higgins finally started hearing the bullets zinging past him and slamming into the items that were around him. He quickly hopped over the podium and crouched behind it.

"We're pinned down! They're all over the balconies and more are pouring in!" Nathan yelled,

"They coming from the Hand of Nod!" Samantha chimed in,

"We need to get the fuck out of here!" Lopez yelled out,

"Calm the fuck down!" Higgins yelled out. He popped up and fired a burst from his rifle hitting a militant two times in the chest and once in the head. He switched targets and took out a militant that was hiding behind a pew and than swung his rifle to the left and killed a militant that was rushing through the doors. Higgins sighted up on another militant but before he pulled the trigger, the militant fired first. The bullet flew through the air and it ended up hitting Nathan, shattering his visor and entering his skull, instantly killing him. Higgins shot another militant before ducking back down into cover.

"They fucking got Nathan!" Jonas yelled out. 'Shit, shit, shit! Need to think' Higgins looked around and remembered that Jonas carried a rocket launcher.

"Jonas, load your launcher and toss it to me?"

"Sir?"

"Now Jonas!" The launcher than came sliding towards Higgins after a couple of seconds. Higgins lifted it up and aimed it at the wall behind them,

"Fire in the hole!" He squeezed the trigger sending a rocket screaming out of the launcher, traveling the distance in milliseconds. The explosion knocked Higgins into the podium and caused a black wave to roll into his vision. 'No! I will not pass out!' the blackness receded and he was able to focus on where the missile exploded at. There was a man-sized hole in the wall and judging by the lack of gunfire, everyone in the temple were shocked at what he did,

"Reapers, let's get the hell outta here! Move, move, move!" Higgins than popped up, fired a burst from his rifle and rushed out the hole, followed closely by the rest of the team. Once he was out of the temple and clear of the smoke he opened up a radio channel and yelled,

"Reaper Air, we need a fast pick-up! I repeat, we need a really fast pick-up!"

"Roger that, on my way!" Sam responded. Higgins turned towards the team to tell them to get ready but before he was able to open his mouth Samantha's voice came over the radio again only, this time, it was filled with pure worry and sorrow,

"They have RPGs!" an explosion, "I'm hit! I'm going down!" Higgins looked over to where he heard the explosion and saw the _Reaper's Cloak _spinning in the air with fire coming from the tail of the bird.

"No" Higgins whispered. The Hammerhead than crashed into the ground sending metal flying through the air and kicking up dust and smoke.

"No!" Before Higgins could move he felt a jabbing sensation in his leg. He looked down and saw that a finned syringe was stuck in his leg between the armored plates and that a blue liquid was slowly being pushed into his veins. All feeling in his arms and legs were quickly lost and he fell to the ground. The burping sounds of machine guns entered his ears and after seeing two of his team get ripped apart it hit him 'They're killing my team! And they're taking me prisoner!' After a couple seconds the team was on the ground, unmoving, and the machine guns quieted, Higgins' vision started to blur and a darkness started settling in but before it overcame him he was able to hear an oddly familiar voice that said,

"Get him on the transport. And immediately start the infusion procedure"

"Yes sir" said an unseen militant. Higgins felt himself being lifted into the air and than the darkness overcame him leaving only one thought in his head…

Vengeance

_**A/N: All right… I know what some of you are thinking. "WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THAT YOU ASSHOLE?" And I'd like to say that this MUST be the way it happens. So… yeah… um… tune in the weekend after the weekend of July 23**__**rd**__** for the next installment of The Few…**_

_**ΦThe RescuerΦ**_


	11. Chapter 11: ReAwakening

_**A/N: Ok, I'm back. This is the last chapter, thanks for reading you faithful people. Anyways, here's Chapter Eleven of The Few.**_

Chapter Eleven: Re-Awakening

Onboard Nod Vessel: _Salvation_

Somewhere In The Atlantic Ocean

Time: 0320 Hours (3:20 AM)

Slowly, Higgins started re-gaining his senses. First he was able to think again and than he recovered his hearing. He was instantly met with a flurry of voices,

"…e's waking up"

"Blood pressures rising, reaching dangerous levels"

"Hurry up and sedate him"

Opening his eyes, Higgins was met with a blurry, drug-induced, view of the world. Looking around he saw figures hustling about and floating across the… the… room, yea, the room that he was currently in. A burning sensation entered his wrist and traveled up his arm and into his chest. His vision started to blur more and a face suddenly appeared in front of him. 'I know that person, but… from where?'

"Don't fight it. Just close your eyes and sleep" it said but to Higgins it was a bunch of random gibberish. 'I heard the word sleep. I think… I just might do tha…' blackness flooded his vision and he suddenly lost his ability to think, succumbing to the drugs, he drifted into unconsciousness.

/-Line Break-\

"_Why did you trust the major?"_

"_You let your team down"_

"_Can't even save the woman you love, pitiful"_

"_Your will watch her die, again and again, until you break"_

Higgins eyes snapped awake and his body shot up into a sitting position before he was fully conscious. Soon, however, the rest of his body caught up and he looked around the room he was currently sitting in with interest. 'Looks like a lab of some sort' he rubbed his face and looked at his hands, palms up, 'Wait, are my finger tips supposed to glow like that? No, I don't think so' Looking around again he saw a black pile set on a table nearby. Intrigued he swung his leg off the bed, stood up, and walked to the table. He picked up the pile and staring at it thought, 'What the hell is this?' He unfolded the pile and realized that it was a black jumpsuit. Looking down he also realized that he was wearing nothing but his boxers. He looked back at the jumpsuit, shrugged, and proceeded to put on the jumpsuit. Once he was done he looked back at the bed, table, thing and saw black socks and boots underneath it. After he had those on he rubbed his face again and thought, 'Okay, I'm in an unknown room, most likely being watched. My name is John Higgins and my fingers fucking glow. What next is gonna fucking happen' He started to scan the walls but suddenly stopped at a certain point and stared at the spot, 'A Scorpion's tail on a red background in a triangle, where have I seen that before?' suddenly a wave of memories hit him like a brick wall and he launched himself at the nearest pipe that was sticking out the wall. Ripping it out he examined that sharp, jagged, edge and positioned himself near the door, 'Okay, reality check, captured by Nod, experimented on, team's… dead, retrieval op gone wrong and now I'm in a lab in some Nod base, wait, the floor keeps tilting, which means… a ship! I'm in a goddamned Nod ship!'

Suddenly the door opened and a man in black scrubs with a white lab coat walked in. Thinking quickly, Higgins tucked himself into nearby shadows and waited. The lab tech walked up to the computer and looked at something on it, frowned and looked up to see an empty operating table, no jumpsuit, and a pipe missing out of a wall. He opened his mouth to yell out something but the pipe was driven into the techie's neck like a spear. Once he fell to the floor and stopped twitching, Higgins knelt down and started to search his body. He was lucky, in his opinion, finding a Glock .40 Caliber pistol with two extra mags, a door card, and a utility knife. Tucking the knife and the door card in one boot and the extra mags in the other, which was highly uncomfortable, he headed towards the open door, looked both ways down the hallway and, choosing to go right, started cautiously moving along it with the pistol aimed straight ahead and peeking behind him every seven seconds. Approaching a corner he crouched down and listened for any sound that would've indicated a person being around the corner. There was a sound alright, the sound of gulping and the smell that also came clarified it. A Nod militant was getting hammered around the corner. Taking a chance, he poked his head around the corner and, sure enough, there was a militant drinking what looked like Vodka and he was apparently 'guarding' a room. 'Too easy' he thought, grabbing a nearby chunk of scrap metal he cocked his arm back and tossed it down the hallway. It flew past the guard and skittered on the floor to a halt. The guard, hearing the noise, muttered something unintelligible and, standing up, started to stumble towards where the sound came from. Testing luck again, Higgins drew the knife and dashed up behind the guard and, covering his mouth, slit his throat. He gently set him onto the floor and than started to rummage through his gear. He found more mags, which he didn't take, for his pistol, more Vodka, and…

Another door card. 'Wait, this one's a different color than the last one' than he remembered that the, now dead, guard was in front of a room. The door had red letters stenciled on it that made the simple, yet most amazing word of all, word 'Armory'. Squishing the wanting of jumping for joy, Higgins took the door card and swiped it in front of a scanner. The door beeped and slid open revealing a mass array of rifles, pistols, shotguns, gauss rifles, on and on it went, but what caught Higgins' eyes was not the high tech weapons but was in fact a pile of black plates with a helmet set on top of it and beside it was a low-tech Q-17 Sub-Machinegun, 'My SMG' he thought with a devilish grin plastered on his face. Carefully, Higgins approached the rack that the armor was set on and started to piece the suit onto his jumpsuit. Once all of the plates were attached and secured, and all the pouches were filled with ammunition, he grabbed his helmet and his rifle and, sliding his helmet on his head, stormed back out the room with his rifle raised. 'They must be keeping my shotgun as a trophy somewhere, bastards' he thought as he started the boot-up sequence for the HUD. All the systems came up with ease but when he saw the GDI Eagle in the Tactical Video Display he grunt and accessed the helmets memory. It was like trying plunge deep into your consciousness but, after awhile, the Eagle turned into the Reaper that the team used as their symbol, only, this one had half it's body blown off, a ripped-up cloak instead of the armor, but it showed it trying to pick itself up with one hand while holding it's scythe in the other hand. The figure was also staring at the person who would be looking at it with blood-stained teeth, a bullet hole in the forehead, and fire in it's eyes. He also noticed that the objective it displayed was still 'Retrieve Target Person'. 'That won't work at all' so, again, he dug into the helmets small processor and suddenly the green letters turned red and the words changed so it instead said, 'Survive And Escape'. The colors of the various other displays turned from green to red as well. Finally putting his attention back to the hallways that he was running through he noticed that the path in front of him seemed distorted, 'Shadows.' One distortion made a move like raising a weapon but John didn't flinch, instead he remembered what Nod did to his team and unleashed a blood-curdling battle cry, raised his own rifle and squeezed the trigger hard. The Shadow Team, not used to GDI soldiers, lone ones at that, charging them head-on, hesitated a bit.

The hesitation cost them as .45 Caliber bullets ripped through their armor and, only seconds later, all four of them lied there on the ground, unmoving. Higgins started down the hallway again but stopped at an intersection and, after making sure no one was near him started to read the signs, 'Mess Hall, Gym, Restrooms, aha Deck.' Nodding to himself, John took one more look around and than started sprinting down the left hallway. Wondering why he wasn't running into a shit-load of Nod troops he started searching through the radio channels and finally he found one that had a signal but the word 'Encrypted' appeared over the emblem in the TVD. Activating the helmets de-encryption hardware he looked back at the hallway in time to see a set of stairs that would take him up towards the deck. He jumped up them, three at a time until he was at the top, only to be facing a wall. He turned around and realized that there was another set of stairs going up, 'Must be like this all the way' he thought. As he was climbing the stairs a message appeared in the TVD, it read 'Decryption Complete' and suddenly an automated, female, voice entered his helmet.

"Warning: GDI Ion Strike inbound. All personal please report to your appropriate evacuation site. Thank you and have a nice day"

"Shit!" John picked up the pace and was soon on top of the ship and, sure enough, there was a thin blue line pointing right at the center of the ship. There were also multiple Nod militants running around on the top of the ship like chickens with their heads' cut-off. He looked around and off at a landing pad, next to a started-up helicopter were the four people he despised the most. They climbed onto the craft, first Farnes, than Kimble, than the agent, and lastly James looked around and, making eye contact with John, smiled and climbed into the helicopter as well. Yelling random obscenities, John raised his rifle, aiming at the copter, and unleashed a hell storm of bullets at it. However it was already out of range and it slowly rose up and flew off towards the horizon. Snapping back to reality, John looked at the blue beam that was getting slower bigger and sprinted off towards back of the ship. Taking a chance and just pushing past the militants he was getting ever closer to his goal. Looking out towards sea he was met with the sight of multiple blue beams circling the ship but getting closer. Only twenty feet from the edge at the back of the ship, John activated his jump jet and rocketed away. Timing it just right where he avoided the circling beams he punched the jets to full power and aimed himself away from the ship. The circling beams finally connected with the lone one and a giant ball of energy traveled down the beam, crashing into the ship splitting it in half and melting the militants that were still on board. The shockwave from the blast finally caught up with Higgins, making him tumble end over end. Thinking fast, Higgins shut down his jets and proceeded to let the shock wave carry him. The light, and heat, caught up however and as he was engulfed by blue one last thought entered his mind,

'This is what it's like to die'

_**A/N: Alrighty than… that's my story. Feel free to flame if you think it's necessary. I do have ideas for a sequel but I don't know if you, the readers, want one. So, please, go to my account and vote on the poll I've set up. If I do make a sequel, it'll probably be named The Reaper or something along those lines. Anyways, it was great writing this for you guys and I got some cool comments, oh, wait, I will be starting a Fallout 3 story called, **_**'Desert Rats' **_**to pass the time while you guys vote for, or against, a sequel for this story. In about three months or so I will check the poll and, if it mostly yes, I'll start on the sequel, and if it's no, I will leave it up for three more months and check again. Anyways, thanks for reading, this is The Rescuer. I'm OUT! (Note: POLL IS NOW CLOSED! CHECK OUT THE SEQUEL CALLED: Reaper's Vengeance)**_

_**ΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦΦ**_


End file.
